drawings and paintings

[Brittons]

Hi... I'm trying to make an effort to stay more involved in the different art communities and post a bit. Here are some new drawings and paintings I've been doing. Comments and crits are welcome.

[Xerxes]

whooh superb portrait of that woman.
Very nice job. Only thing im missing are a few (very few) well chosen nice sharp and crisp lines to focus attention on (i would go for the eyes hehehe) to bring things out more.
Good, good use of chroma.
Did you use titanium white ? It looks slightly chalky, perhaps a faint glaze over the left side of the head would correct things and would also take care of some value corrections (left top and bottom) (light glazing and scumbling can be used very nicely with these sorts of paintings while maintaining spontaneity but putting certain things back on track)

Sorry for the crits but this is too excellent a painting to go without
Hope to see more.

[Art_Addict]

Hey nice work.

I just came back from a 3 week drawing workshop in Paris where Tali gai attended as well.
I think she mentioned you too and said you were very talented. You both study with Dennis right?
Another friend of mine, Stephen studies with him as well. If I'm completely taking you for someone else, please ignore the above, haha.

On the work. I think you have pretty good poster vision. But the level of
shaping the light could come up. On the portrait, the terminators are very weak compared to the cast shadow on her neck. Was this really the case?
Yeah, I would say the main thing to focus on would be to wedge the light shapes more; Make them interlock more instead of pushing the paint around thoughtlessly.

Having said that, I do like your brushwork. I think I would like to see you do it
with more confidence. Exactly knowing where to put what.

Keep it up
Tom

[Brittons]

hi guys... Thanks for crits.

Art Addict... I definately know Tali quite well through class and I met Stephen a few months ago. It's a nice group of people there and I like going to paint and learn from Dennis.

I still can't wrap my head around the word "terminators". It's probably the single most sinister term anyone could come up with a core shadow. From now on, I'm starting a new trend. Cast shadows will be called super destructors, we will refer to value as endless darkness and on and on...

Brushwork and abstract vs. reality is really a tough balance. I actually come from a really tight painting background (with sight size cast studies and that sort of thing), but somewhere along the way I lost my mind. I interpreted the cast shadow comment under her chin as saying that perhaps it would be nice to indicate some reflected light to show a plane change, rather than one dark mass. As I look at it, the edges are kind of harsh, I guess depending on my mood and the monitor I'm looking through. My color/chalkiness is getting KILLED on the monitor I'm looking at right now. Bummer. Hope you all had a good time at the workshop. I'm looking forward to seeing Tali and hearing about it.

[Crush]

Those paintings are beautiful :)

[Art_Addict]

Lol well, they did come up with the term long before Arnold popped up onto the movie scene.

Btw, terminators are synonym for shadow edges, not shadow mass or core shadow....
On the portrait... the harsh edge doesn't bother me, I don't think it looks that harsh actually. Maybe i should have been more clear:
I thought there was a discrepancy between the cast shadow and the darkness of the shadow masses and shadows edges on her face, that's all.
According to the cast shadow I would have expected the shadow masses to be more defined.

The workshop was awesome. If you have the chance to ever study with Tim and Michelle, I would recommend it ! And that's an understatement!