My Teddy

[Linda Brandon]

Hi Carol, glad you finally made it on the Forum!

I think that you have a strong, individual painting style and a bold color sense. If you don't get too many comments on this painting I suspect that it may be because many of us on the Forum are striving for photographic realism, classical realism, or Sargentesque bravura painterly realism. (Have I forgotten any 'isms? here?) It is sometimes hard to cross over into another style when it comes to articulating thoughts about a painting. You lean toward Impressionism here and I'm looking forward to seeing more of your work.

Remember that the Critiques section is for nitpicking - lots of opinionated artists out here - and the Unveilings sections is for when you just want to display.

I like this pose but I agree with Garth that he appears to be floating in his surroundings. I would also like that bear to be squishier with more of a feeling of relaxed droopiness.

[Carol Norton]

Thank you Garth, Jane, Leslie and Linda for taking the time to critique. ALL of the observations will be of help with this painting. I have tried to include the photo reference from which I painted and if it doesn't show up,I'll keep working on that part of posting. I selected that particular shot to paint because it really, REALLY expresses a darling little boy WITH a whole lot of "attitude". I also tried to make his painting look a little "sweeter" than the foto (as it will go in his room...maybe..if I give it to him) but perhaps the "sweetening" undermines the original. I posted the source so that you could see his eyes. From viewing the photo, Leslie, would you still enlarge the eye beside the hand? I will experiment with that and see of it comes across better.

Garth, you are so right about the shadow. The fact is that I don't know how to do it differently. Would you follow the contour of the shirt and shorts, mix some yellow reflected into the shadow beside the shirt and orange into the shadow color beside the shorts? My photo was a candid shot so that is what I had to work with. I also obviously added the hand. I will work further on the shirt color turning into the shadow, too.

Linda, I swear I didn't mean to create an impressionistic "impression". I, too, work toward realism. Chris's class was my first portrait class and Bill's my second. What I had tried to do here was to create lost edges in the chair. Perhaps the color choice should be changed to a more neutral brown. That wouldn't be hard. ALSO, I so appreciate the nitpicking part in the Critiques secton as that is the only way I will learn how to correct my errors. I don't have a reason yet to use the Unveiling section at this stage. Getting all of this help from such experts is the greatest of all gifts. No ego has been EARNED yet, so it can hardly get discouraged by helpful comments. My whole goal - and I am a serious and focused learner - is to paint beautiful, realistic, portraits that appear to be candid - not formal - capturing a "moment in time". Is this the right place to post a painting of this nature? Should I be doing this in WetCanvas instead? I DO love Sergent but ALSO love Sergei Bongart. OH, and I do love the idea of squishing the bear a bit. Would you do that by making him furrier?

[Leslie Ficcaglia]

Carol, now that I see the reference photo I admire your treatment of the background and the shirt even more. I love the way you've pushed the darks and lights on that t-shirt. I still think the eye on our left needs to be open a bit more, and also to be wider along the horizontal axis. You lessened the distortion of his mouth as the hand affects the flesh, and similarly you should lessen the distortion of the eye even more than you already have. If you'll notice, even though it's narrowed due to the way the hand pushes his cheek up, that eye and eyebrow are still level relative to the top of his head. You've tilted the head in the painting more than it's tilted in the reference photo, but you still need to draw a line showing the tilt of the head and have the imaginary line that goes through both eyes conform to that plane.

Also, in the reference photo notice the shadow that the edge of the shorts casts on the thigh of his upper leg, and the shadow which defines the long muscle of his thigh on the lower leg. They would also give him a little more solidity. And on his arm and temple, to our left, there is a band of lighter color reflecting the light that hits that side. You've suggested it on the arm but not the temple.

I'm wondering whether making that added hand a little larger would make it a little more believable? Or get someone else to assume that pose and see how much hand would show and at what angle.

I like the blue of the chair but am finding the orange of the shorts a bit strong, both in the reference photo and the painting. Maybe bringing more blue into the shorts would tone them down and tie them together.

As Linda said, we can get very nitpicky in the critiques section, but on the whole this is a charming piece and I really like it. I too try to pull off candid-looking paintings when I can, so I can appreciate your goal here. I'm looking forward to seeing the completed version of this painting, and more of your work as you post it.

[Garth Herrick]

Carol,

I love the attitude you captured in your photo, and I think you've captured that same attitude in your painting. I think you are improving the imagery beyond the photo in your painting, but as a resource the photo has some limitations, which is forcing you to invent a way to model the forms more dimensionally. Evidently your camera utilized its flash, in taking this photo. The flash is great for recording the local color, but it absolutely kills the forms! Now I understand why you are unsure how to improve the shadows. There essentially are no shadows! You have had to make them up.

I bet if you soften the contrast in the shadow on the seat cushion under your boy and the Teddy, bringing some more hint of the green upholstery lapping up closer to the most protruding edges of the orange shorts and the Teddy's foot, it will resolve the floating effect. In effect you will be flattening the contrast slightly to be a little more in keeping with the absence of contrast in the photo.

When you work with a flash photo reference, it is almost impossible to discern the nuances of form you need to interpret. Having a pattern on the chair upholstery further masks the forms in the photo. Considering the flattening in the photo, I think you have done remarkably well with your painting interpretation. If you can over-ride the flash, and turn it off in the future, you may make things a little easier for yourself when you paint. On the other hand you may need a tripod to steady the camera without a flash. In a pinch, I know it is better to capture the fleeting moment, flash or no flash. There may not be an opportunity to grab the tripod. I personally cannot produce a good portrait from a flash photo; I cannot get rid of the flattening in my painting.

Garth

[Linda Brandon]

Carol, this is a terribly hard photo from which to work - as Garth says, it looks like a flash photo and you have no shadows to define volume. If you want to paint 'form and volume' portraits you should read the excellent posts on photographing your subject on the Forum.

Of course you can post casual portraits here on the Forum, but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't spend a great deal of time composing and lighting your subject so that you have a much better chance of executing a good painting. Paintings done from casual flash snapshots have a slim chance of success, in my opinion. You have a good strong painting style, so give yourself a break and get better resource material - your paintings will be much better and they will be easier to paint because you will be able to see where you want to take your painting.

As far as the bear goes, it looks pretty stiff in the photo. If I were painting this, I'd pummel it until it looked droopy enough for my taste, and reshoot the whole photo.

Ruthless!

[Carol Norton]

Leslie, Garth and Linda and all the computer helpers,

Well, your invaluable instruction has really made an impact: THE PHOTO REFERENCE must give the information necessary to make a strong, successful painting. I GOT IT!!! Finally. I got it. Chris Saper emphasized that point more times than I can count in her class but...I kept thinking (to myself, of course), that I would be able make those "funny fotos" work. And, further more, it appears, quality painters don't work with poor photos either. With only two portrait classes, an anatomy class and a couple of still life classes at Scottsdale Artists' School, in the period of one year, I also didn't have the depth of knowledge to make it all up. I have read that learning is "... just a matter of changing one's mind." Well, I HAVE changed my mind...a lot and with this one posting. Must be my art adolescence that created the need for so much repetition.

Leslie, the other advice that helped was your emphasis on the importance of drawing accuracy. I was shocked when you said that I had tilted the head more than is shown in the photo??? "What?" I said. "Let's go back and look at THAT again!" Lo and behold... I sure had. Bill Whitaker spent two whole days on drawing correctness in his 2004 workshop.

Well, LOTS to work on. And that gut hunger that I feel, my patient mentors, is what creates this unquenchable thirst for improvement. I WILL be back.

[Leslie Ficcaglia]

Originally Posted by Carol Norton

Leslie, the other advice that helped was your emphasis on the importance of drawing accuracy. I was shocked when you said that I had tilted the head more than is shown in the photo??? "What?" I said. "Let's go back and look at THAT again!" Lo and behold... I sure had. Bill Whitaker spent two whole days on drawing correctness in his 2004 workshop.

Well, LOTS to work on. And that gut hunger that I feel, my patient mentors, is what creates this unquenchable thirst for improvement. I WILL be back.

Carol, thanks for taking the suggestions in the spirit in which they were meant! It's so much easier for the objective viewer to see things like the tilt of a head or a smaller eye, and I'm glad you didn't mind the comments. We get so wrapped up in our paintings that we miss those details while we're working on them, and then when someone points them out, or we come back to the work after an interval, they pop right out. I usually do a somewhat detailed drawing in thinned oil on the canvas before I begin to add color, and that's also a good stage for checking on angles and proportions and other relationships.

Especially when you're doing work for your own edification rather than for a commission it is possible to use a less than perfect resource, and it helps if you have a series of photos you can scavenge better parts from. But you can get away with that only after you've got some experience under your belt. Terri Ficenec just pulled it off in her skater painting, where the child's right hand was fuzzy in the reference photo but she managed to make it work anyway.

Are you going to work on this painting any more, and if so, will you share your progress? I think it's a great start.

[Allan Rahbek]

Hi Carol,
I think that your drawing distortions derives from your attempt to adjust to the relatively higher format of the canvas.
Allan