Portrait of my parents

[Kentuckienne]

MY IMAGE(S):



GENERAL INFORMATION:
Title: Portrait of my parents
Year Created:
Medium: Oil
Surface: Canvas
Dimension: 8 inches by 19 inches
Allow digital alterations?: Yes!

MY COMMENTS:
This is my first completed oil painting. My dad has repeatedly asked me to paint his portrait and I repeatedly told him I wasn’t good enough. But he’s 93 and I thought I should do it for him anyway. His eyesight is poor so I figured he wouldn’t be able to tell how poor it was. Then I took over a month to do it because I’m a perfectionist. I see many faults with it, including too much overworking of areas, color not right, proportions off. I would like feedback because I want to do better with my next painting.

MY QUESTIONS FOR THE GROUP:
Anything specific that will help me be a better painter would be appreciated.

[~JMW~]

If you share the ref image, it will be easier to help.

Maybe some blued or lavender shadows at the collars & under the chin/neck around the clothing edges..
It's all a bit too pink in the skin tones, maybe some you tube portrait videos could show better suggestions than typed out...
If you have good ref images , study them closer and match colors , but avoid the camera version of sooty shadows..

https://www.google.com/search?ei=ata...ZZLB84Q4dUDCAo

[Kentuckienne]

This is the ref photo. Wasn’t the best photo but it’s one of the few my mom doesn’t hate. I just had a 4x6 print so I scanned it and printed it 8x10 size on a color laser which wasn’t the best color accuracy. I looked mostly at the larger print because it was hard to see all the detail in the small image. It wasn’t until fairly late that I really started checking the small photo and realized how much more pink the big print was. Also I got frustrated trying to mix up a good skin tone so I confess I opened an old tube of “skin tint” paint which was actually not that far off their skin but it got weirder when I tried to mix it with other colors.

[Kentuckienne]

Here’s the first couple passes...

[Shenko]

Portraiture is the hardest one to accomplish. I applaud you jumping in.

If you are perfectionist and have a-lot of patience, check out the series of youtube videos of Duffy Sheridan. He is super realist, if that appeals to you.

[Kentuckienne]

Thank you, will check out the links. But I hope not to paint more portraits - it’s much harder than anything else. Trying to make a portrait that doesn’t look like a mutant zombie .... not to mention one that looks like the subject...

[lunchbox]

What you have done will be treasured, it was painted with love.

Skin tones are challenging as you are not only trying to match the colors but matching them under different lightings, ambient, daylight etc. Sargent would spend a whole day with a subject only to come in the next and scrape it all out. That isn't all bad as it leaves some natural shadows and contours to work with, and eliminates an over-worked area if possible.

The tendency is to paint lines for wrinkles rather than applying the tones as the skin folds change from one plane to the next, it's a little bit of both.

I'd say well done for your first portrait