Thisis my latest oil painting. It's not the best picture and it's much larger in real life but I'm curious what people think and how they interpret it. I would like comments. Thanks!

Housewife, I took a look at your artwork. I have a BA in studio art and so I am going to critique it the way I was in college. okay?

Ok, the figures of the people are gorgeous.. the face of the child is marverlous with lovely depths and rondure of shape. The hand and arms of the woman are terrific.. I love you how you picked up the veining and shadowing and the metal of the bracelet on the arm around the child is superb.

The metal on the bracelet on her left arm (her right arm) needs a little more definition of shading to put a true depth of roundness.

The womans face is also very good however she appears a bit flat, there needs to be more shading to suggest the depth that a face has and her eyes also appear a bit flat. Some light reflection in her eyes and the childs eyes should take care of that detail.

My biggest "gripe" is with the cloth. The folds and drape are lovely, but the colors appear rather... monotone. When you look at cloth (all the cloth actually), often OTHER colors hint and are suggested at in the folds. The way you have the light accentuating the folds is very good, but the colors appear just a tad too candy bright without depth, if you know what I mean.

The wall behind is perfect, a perfect rustication of perhaps paint or plaster eroding. A beautiful neutral palate for the foreground.

Over all, the composition is marvelous, the figures are beautifully wrought, the coth drape is superb and the facial expressions are terrific.

The areas I suggest making changes would take very little to "fix" but I feel the over-all work is very well done.

B+



I hope you don't mind the critique, but it DID seem that you were asking for one.

Lovely work, can you post more????

Thank you for the critique Sherasi. Don't worry, I was an art major too, I'm used to it! My reference picture was not that great which held me back quite a bit with the faces. There are some highlights in the eyes but it's very faint in the woman's and I don't think you can even see it in this photograph. I'd take a different picture to share but the painting is hanging in a gallery at the moment. Oh, and the bracelets are bone, not metal, and i guess I should have added more depth to them but they were nothing but bright white (no depth) in my photograph and I was afraid of adding too much. I know what you mean with the cloth and I should have taken the time to add more color. I will next time for sure. I was very pushed for time with this one. Thanks for the suggestions, you're a good critiquer. I will work on posting more.