Portrait 23b

Looking better than good. This is the point at which you should have stopped, in my humble opinion. It has some mystery, you have left something for me, the viewer, to fill in myself and have said enough about your wife's face and attitude of body. The finished version, to me, loses a lot of this. Knowing when to stop in a portrait, or any painting for that matter, is such a hard thing and sometimes you have to take the brave decision and stop when you think you have said enough, regardless of how unfinished the painting may look. More paintings seem to be spoiled by being finished than under finished. I think you have been brave showing all your stages and thus inviting opinions - it helps us all learn from other's experiences.

Thea, I completely agree. But the question is - when do you know that you have said enough? I guess the more painting you do, the easier it becomes to stop at the right point. My problem is that I don't have a clear enough image in my head of the painting I am trying to create. It's all experiment - fabulously enjoyable, but very capable of going off at half cock! Thanks for your comments.

Duncan, I agree with Thea. I like this. Not last one. Last one was a bit too much red. You are really brave person to show process. I really enjoy your work. Lovely mysterious and elegant. Art should be elegant or funny or powerful. Mines are too far to say elegant. I'm learing all artist works. I can't wait to see not only portraits, something else what you will try to paint.

Midori, you, like Thea, are quite right. I don't know why, but I sensed that I was going to mess this one up - hence taking photos at the three stages. It's good to learn, and have others observe my growing pains (and through that gain something for themselves). Bravery doen't come into it - I just want to get better as quickly as possible, and inviting feedback is a really useful way of achieving that. The one thing that this particular painting taught me, was to have a much clearer and more precise vision of what the end-painting should be (compositionally and COLOUR-wise) before I started. That may seem pretty obvious, but it obviously eluded me! I may try some landscapes, now that spring is upon us in Britain. I will definitely be trying some watercolour painting now I have seen what you can achieve.

I'm with Thea, Midori and you on this one Duncan! There's so much more interest in this one than the third, I'm not sure why exactly, perhaps it's as Thea says it's the mystery, it invites you in to the picture, whereas all that red in the finished one shuts you out. ps I really like this one by the way!

I should have read all these comments before commenting on the finished picture, because it was all said here... this so nearly worked brilliantly; it's still worked, and worked well, but it could have been that much better.... (Infuriating, isn't it?) You could, of course, still put a darker colour over that rather distracting hits-you-in-the-eye red, but you might well feel that this would be fiddling with it. I hope you'll go on with portraiture, though, because you have an obvious talent for it - if I were your wife (SLIGHTLY hard to imagine that!) I'd be pleased with it. As to when do you know when you've finished.... I don't think, however experienced we are, most of us really ever answer that question: there's most certainly such a thing as stopping too soon, which can be just as bad... this is where preliminary studies can come into their own. The only caveat there is that "preliminary" doesn't mean "pale".

Robert, thanks for your comments. I think the 'red' portrait is beyond redemption. I'll put it down to experience. It's taught me a lot though, and looking back at a few others I have done, I realise that not STOPPING at the right time is my achiles heel.