little red riding hood

[•Lindsay•]

The ground is bad in this painting because I don't know how to paint ground.

[Stoat]

This is real paint on canvas, isn't it? That makes correction so much harder.

The biggest thing I see -- she's not looking at the wolf, she's looking off the left-hand side of the picture. If she were looking at the wolf, you'd see an awkward slice of her cheek and the back of her ear. You probably wouldn't see her eye at all, just the arc of her eye socket.

Okay, that aside...the more finished parts of the picture show promise. I mean, you show promise in the finished bits. Her sleeve, his face, the snowy rocky cliffs in the background.

The ground isn't bad, actually. It's distractingly colorful, maybe. But there are big chunks of many pictures that are the visual equivalent of saying "blah, blah, blah. Don't look at this, it's not interesting." If you don't want the viewer looking at something, don't paint it. And you've not painted the ground pretty well here

[•Lindsay•]

This is real paint on canvas, isn't it? That makes correction so much harder.



The biggest thing I see -- she's not looking at the wolf, she's looking off the left-hand side of the picture. If she were looking at the wolf, you'd see an awkward slice of her cheek and the back of her ear. You probably wouldn't see her eye at all, just the arc of her eye socket.



Okay, that aside...the more finished parts of the picture show promise. I mean, you show promise in the finished bits. Her sleeve, his face, the snowy rocky cliffs in the background.



The ground isn't bad, actually. It's distractingly colorful, maybe. But there are big chunks of many pictures that are the visual equivalent of saying "blah, blah, blah. Don't look at this, it's not interesting." If you don't want the viewer looking at something, don't paint it. And you've not painted the ground pretty well here

It's oil on paper. I moved around my reference in photoshop, printed it, and painted over it. I'm not afraid of changing it, I'll just paint over stuff if I need to, or if I really want to change things I'll start over.

You are right, she is not looking at the wolf. I hope it might look like she saw the wolf, and began to turn her head away in fear.

I used to be annoyed when I saw a picture with two people in conflict and the characters were not looking at each other. Now I realize it is difficult to get all of the elements in the picture you want. I wanted both her face and the wolf's face, and I probably didn't compromise with myself enough.

Thanks for the feedback. I suppose it's true the ground does not need to draw attention to itself, it still bothers me because when I try to paint things like moss and grass, the result hardly looks like those things. I get similar results with plein air paintings. In this painting I'm also having trouble creating a smooth transition from background, middle ground, to foreground. At times the mountains look too far, at times they seem to close to me... the context is missing. I'll attach one of my photo references, so maybe you guys can get an idea of what I am going for.

[justa]

In your shoes I'd widen the image a tad,and have her putting her weight on her right foot, twisting her upper body away from the wolf towards us (turning to run) - given how close he is she should be mostly turned away from him by this point - she can't be just noticing him.Here is a DAstock photo that is kind of what I mean (still not twisted enough though)

D'Arcy

[Artfix]

Yeah, I see promise too. I also like that you are willing to begin again. However, if you hope to be a pro, you don't want to waste time. My advice is that you need to figure this shit out in thumbnails first! At LEAST figure them out in a rough first. You did the rough which you showed us, but all it did was raise problems which you didn't answer. You left them. I reckon that your rough is too rough. You need an in-between stage where after this rough you showed us, you then knock back the background etc so you can see back, middle, and foreground. Then you solve the pose of the figure. Solve it all before you paint!

[•Lindsay•]

Justa, thanks for the idea. I'll try it to see how it looks.

Artix, I did a lot of thumbnails. I have been working on this for a couple of months and I have gotten a lot of feedback from my class. This is an assignment for an online class taught by Manchess. http://www.smarterartschool.com/index.html I would solve the background issue, but it is confusing me. I probably just need to do more studies.

[•Lindsay•]

On the left is the painting with a dress photoshopped over it. On the right is the painting the way it currently looks.

I'm still having trouble with the ground. I tried making it look like she is turning to run. Do you think it's working?

[justa]

Unfortunately, not really. I think the problem is that you're trying to avoid repainting her head and arm, so that has rather locked you into a corner. I did something like that with one of my paintings, and to be honest even though I loved the original sketch I really don't like the painting. I think you need to step back and do a line drawing of Red rather than relying on your photos. I've attached a really rough paintover (don't rely on my anatomy it's off but it shows my intent at least). Also you can see in my greyscale image you have some definite issues in value - it is almost all the same value, which will really impact on the readability of the image.

Hope that helps

D'Arcy