My Teddy

Leslie Ficcaglia · 09-09-2004, 04:40 PM

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 · 09-09-2004, 05:39 PM

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 · 09-10-2004, 10:59 AM

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 · 09-10-2004, 05:46 PM

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 · 09-12-2004, 08:10 AM

Quote:

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.

Carol Norton · 09-12-2004, 09:26 AM

Leslie, as scarey as it was to put that painting out there, I knew that if I didn't ASK for help, I wouldn't get it. I don't want anything to get in the way of my learning.

#1 I WILL do that detailed drawing on canvas first - with thinned oil. It can always be wiped down and redrawn.

#2 I am continuing to work on the painting to put into practice the suggestions that I received. So far, the tilt of the head that is off, is throwing everything else I am attempting to correct further off. (ex. The light between and on the cheek on the painting's left side.) Here's another big lesson: I have worked longer on this painting BECAUSE the initial drawing was off and every correction is requiring ANOTHER correction getting down to the point that the only way to correct is to do another painting or scrap it
SO, to answer your question, YES I will post it IF it doesn't look worse and NO if it is a "paint over" and I don't do another.

#3 Does anyone know if the wet sanding technique I read about in this forum DOES work on a New Traditions panel? Bill Whittaker gave a wonderful demo in one of the posts and mentioned an ABS panel or something like that but didn't directly answer Linda's question about the New Traditions panel. I have ridges in some very key places in this painting that will keep me from painting with accuracy.

Thank you again, for all your very special help, Leslie, as I not only took all the suggestions in the manner that they were intended, but am grateful for them.

Allan Rahbek · 09-12-2004, 09:47 AM

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

Carol Norton · 09-12-2004, 03:02 PM

Allan,
First, thank you for your comment. I would like to understand it better, however. Do I understand you to mean that the canvas should have been horizontal (as it was at first start) or do you mean that I should have dropped his head furrther? I also cropped the picture in iPhoto (after the painting was well on the way, of course) where the entire elbow and part of the bear's nose, and almost all of the shorts were eliminated. I rather liked that composition better, but it was too late for that painting.

Allan Rahbek · 09-12-2004, 04:39 PM

Carol,

What I meant was that you have stretched the figure in the hight but not so much in the with. That is because you have attempted to fill the canvas in the same proportions as you see on your reference photo.

If you measure on your photo, a horizontal line from the nose of Teddy the Bear and to the upper limit of the Orange Shorts you will see that they almost level.
Now, if you do the same on the canvas, you will see what I mean.

By the way, I like your painterly approach.

Allan