Beauty Strength & Passion

Jodi B · Joined: 25 Aug 2007 Posts: 593 Location: Katherine

Hello strangers!!!! It's been a Loooooooonnnnnggggg time since I called in but I thought I might be needing some honest opinions on this one. I'm using a photo I took of my daughter Ami and wanting to portray a beautiful, strong & ambitious kinda girl.

Reference Photo

Jo Tyler · Joined: 13 Aug 2008 Posts: 489 Location: Newcastle

Hi Jodi
Looking really good this far and gorgeous photo. My only note would be to watch you don't do the eyes too round. Can't wait to see more.
Jo.

altheau · Joined: 30 Sep 2009 Posts: 148

Ami is very pretty!

I think this looks great so far I really love watching paintings in progress. Can't wait to see more.

Jodi B · Joined: 25 Aug 2007 Posts: 593 Location: Katherine

Thankyou, I seem to be having trouble making Ami look 'Strong' and thinking I may need to stay with the 'pretty & innocent' feel. Here's a little more progress...

The Pook · Joined: 01 Feb 2007 Posts: 2904 Location: Tasmania

Nice, but are the eyes a little close together and too wide open compared to the photo? Opening them more gives more innocence less strength. And likewise the angle of the eyebrows is too / \ and not enough \ / perhaps.

pugwash · Joined: 04 Jul 2007 Posts: 1380 Location: Perth

Jodi. The strength you see is in Amy's eyes, in her direct, almost challenging look straight at the camera and in the angle of her eyebrows. If you look at the reference you'll see that the pupil and the highlight are very close to the upper eyelid. Her eyes are almost half shut and her eyebrows are angled downwards towards her nose. You have painted her eyes wider than the photo with the iris placed in the centre which together with the curved eyebrows makes her look surprised.
Everything else looks great.

The Pook · Joined: 01 Feb 2007 Posts: 2904 Location: Tasmania

yeah what he said, except I thought you painted the eyes closer together than the photo. Maybe it's the eyes that are closer together and the irises that are further apart.

Hayley · Joined: 05 Feb 2007 Posts: 344 Location: Geelong

It seems that you are painting what you know (about faces), not what you see.

As an exercise which will make any inaccuracies very clear to you, place tracing paper over the original photo, then finely and accurately trace any (and only) lines and outlines without overthinking them. Turn it upside down if you can't mentally divorce yourself from how well you already think you know the image.

Enlarge this line drawing (photocopy) onto more tracing paper to the size of your painting and lay over the painting. Any issues will be obvious. No, this is not 'cheating'.

The Pook · Joined: 01 Feb 2007 Posts: 2904 Location: Tasmania

Another thing is that the left cheek (on the right as you look at it) is far too wide. It makes the nose look uncentered you need to pull the shawl back over the cheek more on that side.

Jodi B · Joined: 25 Aug 2007 Posts: 593 Location: Katherine

Thankyou!! I'm hoping to get some spare time today or over the weekend to work on my beautiful girl & will post another progress pic soon

Jodi B · Joined: 25 Aug 2007 Posts: 593 Location: Katherine

We've been away for a bit and managed to find some time here and there to work on my Ami BUT had very limited internet access and forgot my reference pic (but couldn't help myself) so here's where I'm at.

Jodi B · Joined: 25 Aug 2007 Posts: 593 Location: Katherine

I'm thinking of calling this finished... unless anyone can give me some more suggestions. Then again now that I've uploaded it, the eyes might need a bit more work Confused

Nope, now that I've had another look she's definately not finished... one eye is lower than the other and further from the nose... Crying or Very sad

I hate this stage, it's so easy to completely stuff it right up!!

Chrissy D · Joined: 12 Jan 2006 Posts: 1053 Location: Queensland

Just gorgeous. So dramatic. I would slightly lighten the eye colour though like in an earlier stage even though the photo does show it dark, I think it looked better lighter, just a twinkle of lighter green for that spark. Maybe a bit of shadow for the lip like in your photo. They just look a little too red and severe. This is just nit-picking though. It looks fantastic as it is.

You know, funny thing is, in the photo I think it could be eyeshadow make-up or just the shadow from the camera but it looks like your daughter has a black eye, and I thought, this could really work and be powerful. A variation perhaps for a domestic violence awareness thing?

Jodi B · Joined: 25 Aug 2007 Posts: 593 Location: Katherine

Thanks Chrissy, yeah both Ami's eyes look a bit not normal in the photo, I suppose I've used the photo more for guidence rather than an acurate reference and my original intension for this painting was to paint the image of a strong young girl rather than a portrait of my daughter (if that makes any sense at all) Confused

Her eyes were uneven and off centre so I've actually started repainting them and agree with you about making them a little more green and have just toned the lips down a tad.
Living in a small town I might give the black eye / domestic violence awareness look a miss this time around Wink

The Pook · Joined: 01 Feb 2007 Posts: 2904 Location: Tasmania

The eyes are still more open than in the reference photo. And the shadows around them (under them) are more pronounced - you've lightened them in the painting, which makes the eye area come forward more. You've gone more for the wide eyed innocent look than the more focussed "strength" look of the title.