Soliciting suggestion and critiques

christenmu wrote

on 13 Feb 2010 9:55 AM

Friends,

I haven't posted for quite sometime on this forum, ever since I went back to full-time work force. Tried to do some weekends paintings as much as I can.

Here's my latest painting currently being done for a friend. As usual, I'm struggling with the background landscape and would like some suggestion from the group. Initially, I painted the white fence in the background top left as the photo reference has, but felt too distracting, so replacing with some pumpkins, since the picture was taken at the pumpkin farm. Don't want to make the pumpkins too prominent so not to distract from the subjects, but ended up too muddy when blending the edges.

I also posted the progression of the painting, so you can see the white fence background and the current pumpkins background to compare.

 C and C on the portrait itself are welcome as well. 

thanks in advance.

Margo5 wrote

on 13 Feb 2010 10:35 AM

I love the way you have captured the mother and child with movement, great expressions and emotion. Is this watercolor, acrylic, oil, pastel? Does the background have to have anything in particular in it? The fence was too light a value and on a diagonal pointing your eye out of the painting. The pumpkins probably should have been fewer and larger and again a darker value to keep from distracting the eye. Personally, I like the fence better than I like the pumpkins, but your first posted progression looks really good with nothing but tone in the background. Maybe if you glaze over your pumpkins with a variation of the mother's hair color, the pumpkins will add color interest to the over-glazed background and the mothers hair could melt into the background with a soft edge. Lighter and darker tones of the mother's hair color could be used against her hair for areas of contrast and merging and would give contrast against the mother's clothing. That would also give you a dominantly warm painting. Right now it seems a little too balanced between the warm and cool.

christenmu wrote

on 14 Feb 2010 7:55 AM

Thank you Margo for your very good suggestion. The painting is oil. I'm working on using more paints on my paintings, that's another area I need to work on. I will see what I can do with the background. Try out different things like your suggestion on having the pumpkins darker value and if that doesn't work out, will paint all green grass background, which I'm gravitating towards at the moment. You're dead right on the mother's hair. I added too much highlights on her hair that it does need some softer edges and contrast now. Appreciate your critique.  

spokaneartist wrote

on 15 Feb 2010 10:16 AM

dear Artist,

Beautiful subject would suggest getting alot more Value and depth of color.

christenmu wrote

on 20 Feb 2010 7:05 AM

Thank you spokaneartist. I'm posting the corrected version. I talked to my friend and she likes the pumpkins in the background, so keeping them but made them darker as suggested by Margo. I also made the hair a bit softer on the mother. Appreciate all the suggestions.