#study on a study

I think there are quite a few errors you will notice right away, the angle of the face, the tones used and to a lesser extent the background. First lets explain the problem with the angle of the face

The face in the reference and in the first sketch do share the same approximate turn of the head as well as slight diagonal tilt. The major problem comes when looking at how upwards the head is. The reference face has a slight upwards tilt, while the first sketch is more angled downward. To correctly display this that would require the sketch to have less of the bottom planes of the brow ridge and of the nose revealed. This correction is not seen. The next problem that occurs because of the lack of an upwards tilt is just how wide and how long the face appears. The sketch appears to have a longer skinnier face when compared to the reference, which would be accurate to what happens when you point the face more parallel with the camera, this would be fine if it was carried though out, but it wasn’t. It appears that in the second progress shot there was an attempt to widening the jaw. This probably occurred because I was comparing the painting to the reference and noticed a difference in absolute width between the two. Instead of trying to correct the angle it appears that the painting just had the width of the jaw increased instead. This has many concerning implication to the overall painting. It means that either the painting has a large jaw or that it has a very long forehead. The long forehead is explained because most of the elements suggest an upwards tilt. Because of elements like the nose plane, the eye ridge, and even the ears to an extent  (though they are mostly covered) the viewer might accidentally believe this face is angled upwards, even though the existing jaw does not agree at all. This upwards tilt makes the forehead look even longer, an error that doesn’t seem like a purposeful decision when looking at the reference. This error appears to be mostly corrected with the final painting, as the jaw appears to have shrunk once more. The eye ridge is still suggesting an upwards tilt, but the nose lacking any definite bottom plane doesn’t do much suggesting. The “correction” with the nose seems more accidental than anything as it just appears that it was left unfinished. There are very few egregious errors with final painting in terms of angle, other than an obvious delineation from the reference. Now the next most obvious error is the over tone of the painting compared to the reference.

The tones used throughout the painting are less saturated for sure. There could be an argument made that the desaturated look of the skin is simply because of the reference fair skin tone. This argument though misses the entire point of the tone study, which was to capture the natural/seen tones of the reference. This study wasn’t simply to do a painting with a skin tone, this study was done to recreate the skin tone of the reference. There is an obvious failure to meeting that criteria. The closes match in tone appears somewhat in the hair and barely under the neck but overall the painting lacks the matching tones needed to really replicate the reference. The tone of the painting is more neutral, closer to grey, and if anything needs to be closer the more orangish tone found in the face. The lips scream dead person as well with there lack of any pigmentation. The painted hair seems to capture more of the overall tone of the reference, but it lacks the actual shape. This is fine when the point of this study was to capture tone. The clothing in the painting and the reference are extremely far apart in tone though I will admit that the study is a study more on flesh tones than on capturing the entirety of the tones found in the reference. Another note is the lack of discretion in choosing warm shadows versus cool shadows. It should be noted that cool shadows in skin occur because of cast shadows. This is what happens when light doesn’t even reach the surface because it was blocked well before reaching the subject. Warm shadows occur when only part of the flesh is hit with light but one area doesn’t get hit. One of the most used examples of this is what happens when you hold a light bulb with your hands. Your hands appear to have a red glow. War shadows frequently occur on flesh, this is because of skins translucent nature. Skin has a great level of sub surface scattering that needs to be taken into account when showing shadow areas. The level of light hitting the subject depends on the source of light, the subjects own reflective nature and from the environments reflective nature.

The lack of a background could effect how well lit the painting appears. The reference has these large whitish tiles behind the subject. These tiles would be very good at reflecting light meaning that one could focus on how these tiles impact the lighting of the painting. This would be interesting to think and work on in later paintings. The lack of these whitish tiles might have even influenced the viewer on how saturated the subject appears in the painting. But overall including more of the background details doesn't seem like a change that would have much impact on the painting other than increase possible likability.