/ic/ - Artwork/Critique

In better lighting

>>4168671
polished turd. you have no sense of structure and your values are shit.

>>4168667
Why in the name of goodness paint from a photograph?! I literally cannot even. Okay, I've calm down. Seriously now. You've got no color variety, and the the lack of background integration makes it seem like a collage where the girl was cut and pasted into a black canvas. You don't paint bad, but you are just using the medium at the smallest of it's possibilities.

>>4168667
Okay, I'll tell a couple things that I see. first the shoulders. I barely can see the shoulder muscle vulume difference from the chest. Then look at your own own collarbones in the mirror and compare them to the drawing. Then, one thing that's a bit of a meme here. White highlights. White as a colour creates it's own volume. The same as solid black. The white you see in the eyes of your reference (and please, try to use a live model the next time) is not the what you would see under normal light and it's not a light highlihgt; rather it's direct reflection of the artificial light that was used in the photo. Same in the lips and hair. Eliminate the white, up the value of the colours, fix the chest, do something about that black background and you'd have yourself a really good painting.

>>4168671
First of all, this is already pretty good, some regions show me that you definitely know how to paint and know how to mix colors. It just seems to me that you have trouble with patience and consistency. That is something that is usually solved by practice. Here is some things that I think you may want to focus on:

Values seem inconsistent, especially the neck/chest area, the hair (which I assume you took a lot of freedoms with). Just compare directly to your source and you'll see. It gives a very wrong sense of plasticity. The collarbones are particularly off, the lighting makes no sense.

In many regions your style is too linear, especially the eyes, the mouth, the nose. Don't try too hard to include every little detail, i.e. your brush is not fine enough to actually paint every single eyelash, so don't do it. Some colors are washed out, especially the hair. It looks like you mixed your highlight colors with your shadows. Never do that. It makes your colors milky and unappealing.

The part requiring the most work is really the hair, the quality of it is just not really what you want. Redo it and try harder to stick to your motive. Take your time with it, don't rush it.

>>4168711
>>4168745
There is absolutely nothing wrong with painting from a photograph

>>4168757
Of course not. The gestapo is not going to come to your home and you are not going to be shot in the head for painting from a portrait from a photo.

Just know that here and in most art circles people have seen plenty of this. The rigidness of pose, the exactitude of features, flatness of face, and the total spread of light just shout "Painted from photo!". So as an advice, don't expect anyone above mom and dad and auntie, and the average redditor to be impressed or like it too much.

Singer Sargent, Courbet and Van Gogh did it beautifully and they didn't use a photo. Why not attempt to at least try to be half as good as them?

>>4168771
You are frankly delusional if you think that professional portraitists don't use photographic material as a motive. The symptoms you describe have little to do with painting from a photograph, but simply with lack of experience and prioritizing certain objectives. The real advantage of a life motive is that you have a lot of freedom over composition.

>>4168787
You are right, I forgot that Rembrandt pulled out his iphone and took a photo of the whole city watch to then help with his painting at his studio. Sorry, got my facts mixed up.

Now, personally, I also use help photos but just as a reminder of positions I left things but I never draw or paint from them. The people I see using photographs the most often bring out out the soulless works. They use the eye of the camera as a crutch to their own untrained perception.

>>4168816
I've seen the opposite enough times that I don't see photographs as the problem.

Thanks for the feedback. This is my first time ever painting a portrait, let alone drawing a face, so i still have much to learn. The person in the portrait has sadly passed away, so i don't have the option of painting from live.

>>4169378
>Thanks for the feedback. This is my first time ever painting a portrait, let alone drawing a face, so i still have much to learn.
If this is indeed true, then your portrait is very, very good. Keep it up.

>The person in the portrait has sadly passed away, so i don't have the option of painting from live.
Sorry to hear that

>>4168696
Hello Brian.
>>4168667
>>4169378
There is a reason portraits are so hard to get right, and why portrait painters were once so highly paid.
I spent over a year painting still lives from set ups to get really used to colour mixing, and to not rely on photographs to make decisions about grouping values and hues. But then you get to faces, with all the bones & muscles etc to take into account, all the tiny colour shifts and value changes across the skin, and the problem of putting down paint is so much harder.
Well done on this first effort, it will take you hundreds of portraits before you will satisfy yourself or /ic/, but don't worry about pleasing /ic/.
/end of blog post.

>>4168667
Shading is good but ruined by bad construction

Trying to apply some of the stuff that was mentioned, still work in progress. Added more hues, fixed odd left eye and heightened the values on the chest region, trying to fix values more as well. Ill post again when ive fixed more.

>>4171442
Another problem that i guess is too late to fix is...never do a straight on face for a portrait. Either slightly turned or 3/4.

>>4168816
Lmao based. But yeah photos are useful, but beginners should stay away because they have no fucking clue how to use them and the result is usually bad copy. Op if you want to git good start drawing and painting from life, doing gestures and also master copies, right now you draw like every other photo-copying turd-polishing beg(no offense) and if you keep drawing from photos you won't improve.

You should really learn how to draw and render something fully in either graphite or charcoal before tackling paint. If you are good at drawing, this translates directly to painting. There is no sense of form to this, not in the least because your values are all very close. You probably also picked a bad reference photo that had washed out values. Set up a still life with a definite light source and draw that to the fullest of your ability, it will teach you a lot in order to become a better painter.

>>4171679
Seconded!

>>4168671
You did not capture the texture of the hair. The hair looks more like raw meat. Also there are Things structurally wrong with the face (one eyesocket too low, forehead too small etc.) my guess is you jumped into painting way too soon without having a proper drawing. Also there is still a lot of line dependance (collarbones)

>>4168667
Lol guys, give OP a break. He wanted to paint a photo of a deseaced person. It was his first try and didn't know that she'd spark a massive ic shitstorm. Be a little more gentle.