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manati20 [2021-05-24 18:26:21 +0000 UTC]

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saintwizard [2017-06-03 02:38:58 +0000 UTC]

Holas

Let's see, before talking about your work let me establish some good points from other paintings, this will help us to know why your portrait may or may not work at all. All of this by making a simple exercise, look at these paintings from far away, by doing this you can easily see their focal points (which we can understand as the emphasized elements).

The painting  General George Washington at Trenton. I'll only concentrate in some (not all) decisions that makes it work.

There are three focal points, the neck of the horse (which has a symbolical meaning), Washington's face and the rest of his body.

Washington is fully illuminated, we can see all the details of his uniform, the black of his coat makes a good contrast with the background, the yellow of the rest of the uniform helps us to explore his entire body. Most important, his face (specially his forehead), and the white part of his uniform around his neck has more light than the rest of the body, this draws the eye to always concentrate in his face. As you can see, the body of Washington is completely and carefully detailed, except for the background, which is more obscure, the horse, the soldier and the battle behind Washington become less and less detailed.

All of this putted together tells a story we can read by examining the painting from bottom to top: From the chaos of war and death a divine figure rises, the leader and savior Washington, with a pose of intelligence, bravery and integrity, has his eyes looking into the future.

Another painting,  George Washington at Princeton, let's do the same exercise by looking it from far away. We have three focal points again, Washington's body, the background behind him and his feet.

This painting has more or less the same kind of qualities, Washington is fully detailed and illuminated (with emphasis in his face), there’s black and blue in his uniform which makes good contrast with the background, the right part of the background is obscure and has war symbols, the other part is enlightened and has the image of a civilization, both parts have less details. The light in his feet is just like the horse, merely symbolical.

We can read this painting as: Washington standing on the remains of war, relaxed, looking at you and proud to show you what is behind him, his work of art, a city of light, progress, security and freedom.

These two paintings share some qualities, which are: Contrast of color, contrast of light and difference in details, all of these in pro to give emphasis to the character.

So, what all of this have to do with your portrait, EVERYTHING, now let’s look at your work from far away and see if it has focal points. The number of focal points can vary depending of what you want, it can be 4 or 3, even 1 but never 0.

You have three focal points, the tactical army googles, the symbol on his shoulder and the mountains.

This is a major problem because you’re not giving emphasis to the soldier, so even if his face is in the middle of the painting our eyes are driven to look at the googles. There’s no contrast of color or light, the colors of the uniform are the same as the colors of the flag (which may not be a bad idea but the lack of difference of contrast makes it look poor), just like the colors of the mountains and the colors of the armor of the arms.

The background is as detailed as the soldier, this is also a problem, the eyes cannot focus on anything because everything is in focus, everything is fighting to gain the eyes attention and there’s nothing to let them rest.

Washington was the most important element in the previous examples, that’s why he was well illumined and detailed from all the elements, we must keep in mind that everything that is not important must not steal the eye's attention from the important part, so we have to be selective; the mountain doesn’t need that amount of light and details, not even the flag and definitely not the googles and the symbol.

Now, you don’t need to tell a story in you paintings, it’s not necessary, those were just examples of how the use of color, contrast and amount of details can help to emphasize a character. I know my examples were full body paintings but those qualities can be used in any kind of painting.

In simple words, you did everything backwards, but that’s not a bad thing, if you let it, it can help you to learn a lot.

I’ve seen your recent works and I have high hopes on you.
Good day.

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SkyPotatoFire [2017-04-23 02:50:12 +0000 UTC]

Groovy!

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