[sboydn]

An additional drawing of one of these carvings, also graphite and white chalk pencil on grey paper and about 8” x 9”:

[sboydn]

Good work, and a very useful exercise!  Looking at your notes, I think you’re already seeing some of the issues with your own drawings, which is great–that is always the path toward improvement.  I’d add that the second skull on your first page has an overly shallow cranium and a rather flat profile (though I can’t see your reference, so can’t say for sure).  Also, I’d recommend giving less attention to individual teeth for sketches at this level of finish; just grouping those into big simple shapes should be sufficient, and would allow you to do more drawings in the same amount of time and focus more on large forms.  Others might disagree with me on that, though.

Hope this helps!

[sboydn]

I think it IS working!  It’s an appealing design, and I really like the soft light.  If I were to choose a few things that could be improved, though, I’d go with these:

1. The head seems somewhat large–or at least, the arms look too short in relation to it (hard to change now, though!).
2. The hand that’s on her knee is a bit shapeless; it could use more structure.
3.  I’m sure the radiator (?) below the window was actually there, but I feel its detail is unnecessary and distracting.  I think the design would be stronger if you painted that out, which should be a relatively simple alteration.
4.  I’d suggest a little more punch at the center of interest, her face–maybe intensify the color there?

Hope this helps!

[sboydn]

Hi Roman,

I know I saw your first painting here get critiqued in a video by one of the NMA instructors, but I don’t see a link here and can’t find it again.  Did you see it already, by any chance? If someone else knows which video it was, maybe they could add the link here, for Roman and/or anyone else who’d like to get to it directly from this thread!

[sboydn]

In taking a look at your second portrait, I feel the biggest issue is probably the size of the face relative to the size of the features.  The features themselves are not bad at all; the shapes are believable, apart from the need for a bit more volume definition on the ball of the nose.  There’s also some nice value modeling, with a shadowed bottom plane on the nose and lower lip (the upper lip should probably go darker, too) and some good darks where the brows meet the nose to give a sense of the recessed area there.  Note how much better the feature area looks if you view it by itself:

However, the outline of the face is too far out from the features.  This can be very effective in a caricature, but isn’t so great for a standard portrait. Typically the face is about five eye widths across; yours is more like six.  I would carve back the outlines at the sides and maybe bring the hairline down a bit, enlarge the eyes, or both (try not to over-correct, though!).  More value modeling along those sides of the face would improve it as well.  Hope you find this helpful!

[sboydn]

I think if you softened some of the edges, it would make a big difference.  Also, his left eye and ear (the ones to our right in the image) sit a bit too high, making his face look slightly skewed.

Nice jacket–it’s a real strong point in this painting (apart from the sharp outline).  I find it a challenge to make stiff clothing look three dimensional in a head-and-shoulders portrait.

[sboydn]

@rizk-christopher :

I can see the careful labor and considered thought that went into this portrait!  There are a lot of things working here—the careful modelling of form in the scarf (?) around your subject’s neck, the shadows in the hair above her forehead, and the nose and cheek area, especially.  I also like the choice not to give her forehead a solid outline.

I feel there are two main areas where you could really improve this drawing.  First, the eyes; honestly, they look rather eerie.  They need more “white” at the near corners (not true white—your value in that little sliver of the white of the eye is good, just enlarge that area).  I think that one small change would make a world of difference!

The other biggest issue here is the shadow on the upper part of the head.  Lighting conditions that create such nice, strong shadows on the lower part of the head should leave more of a shadow on the near side of the forehead, too, I’d think, and I’d expect the core shadow to run closer to or into the near eye socket.  In fact, much of the hair on that side of the head should also be in shadow.

A few smaller things: I think the teeth would look better if you made them darker—they’d be somewhat shadowed by the upper lip—and perhaps simplified their bottom edge a little further (though I can tell you already put in a valiant effort not to draw the lines between them!).  More shadow on the bottom plane of the tip of the nose and of the end of the chin would be good, too.

Hope you find this helpful! 🙂

[sboydn]

This is a gorgeous painting, Kara–I especially love the color (rich without being overwhelming) and the painterly brushwork!  You make me want to paint this lovely spot too.

My main critique would be the lack of a clear focal point.  This is made more difficult by the “stripey” nature of the scene: a stripe of water, a stripe of building, a stripe of foothills, a stripe of hills/mountains, and a stripe of sky.  This kind of subject makes dynamic composition more difficult, though the palms help with that.

Right now, I feel that the cluster of palms on center right, the peaked roof on center left, and the bright spot in the hills at center top are all competing to be the primary focal point.  I would choose one–probably the peaked roof, but the palms would be ok, too–and play it up.  Let’s say you chose the roof.  I would increase the value contrast there and add some sharper edges, some additional details, probably a streak of hotter red on the roof there and/or some other more intense color(s) such as a strong blue in the shadow.  Basically, that focal point should, if possible, have the greatest value contrast, the most saturated color, and the highest level of detail–though not so much as to overwhelm the rest of the painting or stand out in a jarring manner.  I’ll guess you more or less understand this already, but got carried away on the scene by the other points of interest.  Happens to me, too, I’ll freely admit!  Anyway, I think I’d also add a bit of atmospheric perspective to the hills/mountain, slightly lightening them, to keep them from competing as much with the foreground and push them back in space a bit.  It might have looked exactly as you painted it, so it’s a personal decision whether to stick with that or not, but I believe it would make for a more effective image.

Hope you find this helpful! 🙂

(By the way, some changes made at home to an alla prima painting done on location can spoil its natural feel–changing the hills might be counterproductive now, though I would recommend it if you were painting a similar scene again.  It’s tricky to figure out which alterations are worth risking at home, and which are only wise to do while still working plein air.)

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