Red Shade

One more before I move onto paintings of a more airy nature.  Like so many other pictures I've painted, when I saw the original, I wondered when I was going to paint it.  Notice I said when, not if.   Since I've been struggling with portraits anyway, it was a perfect pairing.  

I knew I would have trouble in two areas.  First, of course the hair.  Secondly, the hand.  I painted several layers of skin (yes, I'm very happy that I got a good skin tone, and not just a yellowish, pinkish tone).  I left a little bit of a hard edge to some of them, but I don't think that matters very much.  The jacket came next.  I needed to have a color different than the skin and different from the hair.  Accomplished.  The hand needed a few details.   I have a friend who tells me, "Suggest, don't State." and so I dind't try to get the hand exactly perfect, rather just some lines and a little shading.  I actually think it works.  Lastly  the hair.  A lot of hair.   Normally my hair looks like a blob of color with some streaks in it.  This time I really tried to make it look super real.  I think I probably made about 20000 brushstrokes on her hair.  (OK that may be a bit of an exaggeration, but not by too much.)  I didn't want all the hair flowing in the same direction, and I didn't want it all the same color.  I tried to vary it with 3 to 4 different colors.  

Well, all in all I think I did a good job, maybe not stellar, but I bet, better than most.  Hope you enjoy.

Colorado

Well, here it is, a family portrait.  My mother and step father together in Colorado.  I think I did a fair job with this.  You can see in the picture below there was a lot of dark coloring in my step father's jacket and hat.  I had to compensate by making the collar and brim of his hat a bit lighter.  I did the same thing with my mother's coats.  I suppose there are better painters who could do a better job, while still keeping the collars and hats the same shade.  As for me, I thought it was a really good compromise.  I like the mottling in the pantlegs of the jeans.

Here is the original picture.  As you can plainly see, I didn't follow the proper background.  Well, I didn't know exactly what do do about the snow.  I've never painted snow and I didn't want to start now.  I wanted to give a soft diffused background that would compliment the subject color.  As it is I think I did a good job with it.  When you look at it, you notice the background but you immediately look away from it and are drawn to the subject.  I think I worked great.  Let me know what you think.

Also, don't you think it looks like mother is 20 years younger?