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valentina-s — RGD: HaydenTheFox
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Published: 2016-01-06 18:58:18 +0000 UTC; Views: 504; Favourites: 22; Downloads: 0
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Description
edit: updated this painting a bit! fixed her eye sorta and smoothed out her skinRelated content
Comments: 10
Interesting portrait! I love the painterly and quick look of your markmaking.
The trees and the birds create a definitive rhythm in the piece as well as a strange tension. The person's expression here is composed and calm, but the stabbing inwards of the branches is pushed against by the bursting out of the birds. I had a thought that maybe this person is covering over internal turmoil (branches) with their peaceful exterior (birds), which would explain the contrast between the energetic (even angry?) brush strokes with the placid expression, but that's just one idea. I like that you left both the trees and birds very abstract.
The ice blue colour is an interesting choice. Since the figure is wearing a turtleneck sweater the cold colour cements the wintery atmosphere, but its also such a contrast with the muted browns and rich reds of the rest of the colour scheme that it has an uneasy feeling as well. The small touches of blue in the face are very effective, I think that without them the reds and browns would feel like they came from a different lighting environment. Those small blue marks cement the figure in this forest.
For the sweater I'm a little conflicted. Yes it is kind of an amorphous blob, but I think that since the rest of the image is so busy that it is good to have the sweater as a restful anchor for the rest of the piece. However, the direction of the marks inside the sweater feel a little haphazard. One place it works really well though, is the neck. The subtle variation in values of the red create a ribbed texture while still reading as a solid shape.
The choice of having the viewpoint below the face adds more tension to the image, and I always find it personally really hard to draw the face at that angle, so kudos on that! However, the features are a little bit skewed. The eye on our right is noticeably larger than the other, which causes the two sides of the face to appear tilted at different angles. The mismatched eyes do feel a bit creepy and off-balance, which fits the mood of the rest of the image, but I'm not sure that you were going for that. Also, there could be some more hair on the top right, it feels as if the back of the skull is cut off a little bit.
I hope my comment wasn't too rambly, I had a hard time articulating what I wanted to say about this image.There is a lot of energy in this painting and it certainly arrested my attention!
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hey fralea, thank you so much for your feedback!
I really appreciate your interpretation of the piece; when I draw I don't really have words to put for what direction I want to go with the piece but you've done it nicely!
Absolutely nailed it with what I did with the sweater; I put in effort on the neck ( the ref image was cropped at the neck) but when it came to the rest I kind of fumbled. Making the texture was really frustrating too ( lots of short strokes - I don't particularly enjoy that lol) and good catch on the eye! I need to be really strict with my portraiture; I nudged the eye a bit while making this thinking it'd be enough but I suppose I was wrong; it does look off to me too. Creepy was not my intention with this haha looking back now, both her eyes dont match the ref image . D: Also I had not noticed that about the hair! It's very subtle and its not much smaller than the original ref; but I can definitely see how it makes the skull look cut off. I would have never even considered how a minor change in the size would affect this!
Thank you again fralea for writing this; you've been incredibly helpful! Time to step up my game!
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Heh, funnily that picture looks similarish to a friend of mine. You really made something awesome out of that snapshot.
I think, if you were struggling with the texture it is ok to just put a big solid shape instead. It might look cool, depending on the composition. I think for this one it would work at least.
Faces are so tough! One little thing and they look off haha. I struggle with them a lot > >;; Sometimes it really takes someone else who hasn't been staring at the painting for hours to notice the little things. Do you flip your canvas btw? That sometimes helps stuff jump out at me. But it doesn't always work.
And your stuff is already awesome, but we area lways getting better c:
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Hi there! , I come from ProjectComment to give a constructive critique in this beautiful workpiece
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Things I Like
I really like the style in which you made this painting, the expression on her face is very well made, gives a feeling, like she is thinking about something, I don't know if that was your intention or it the original photo she was in that way, but it looks great!
Those seagulls gives the illusion that her thoughts carry certain memories of the sea or open air, it seriously looks like the cover of a movie !!
Things that could be improved
I'm very fond of the brushstrokes in the painting, I love seeing them, you've done very well in there, although the style is made so that the brushstrokes create the delineation of the figure, you might want to work a little bit more on her clothes, to define the separation between her turtleneck and shoulder a little more, although I see the dark strokes that do that, maybe you could add them a little bit more to be better defined
The same in the case of the right side of her face and her forehead, where her hair begins, it looks as if her face had been painted over the hair and it gives the impression that the face is a mask and not a part of her head
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Finally I really like the feeling I get seeing this painting, you're great, keep it up!
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Hey Ziano-rein, thank you so much for the thoughtful feedback!
You're completely right about the turtleneck and head; my reference image was cropped at the neck as well as blurred and thus I had to improvise. Not an excuse though, finding refs and getting better at anatomy should've been on my agenda while painting this instead of making things unreadable as a way to cheat. 
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Greetings! I come from the "Comment Project", but I'm commenting on this wonderful piece because I want to!
This is a really beautiful piece of work! There is lots of implied story in it...a picture tells a thousand words! I love how simple all the strokes are, and how you were able to portray everything with thick, simple strokes. The birds and the trees are both beautifully done! I especially like the figure! And the birds flying around her really compliment the piece! This is very beautiful! Wonderful work over all! One thing I might suggest is giving her some eye lashes...its not bad that she doesn't have them, I just think she might look slightly more complete with them.
Over all, this a beautiful and inspiring piece of work! Wonderful job!
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Hi Phiona, thank you for taking the time to write this!
I agree about the lashes; could've sworn I drew lashes but I must've painted over them haha! Good eye! (pun unintended
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No problem! Anything I can do to help!
yeah,eye lashes can be easy to miss, and easy to paint over, I totally understand! Haha,
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I don't know of this character, so I might not understand a lot of the context, but this is kind of an interesting impressionistic work. With simple broad strokes, you've conveyed a forest pretty well. The white things...are impressionistic seagulls I guess? I don't really understand what those are about. are they to convey a seaward journey coming up? Or some memory that happened at or near the sea?
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Hey, thanks for the comment. This is a portrait of a real life person, not a character from media
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