I got your email. I saw this last night was impressed. Not sure what to say to you. I think you need to understand that small brushes and noodling something to death is not what it's about and painting loose and massing things more and creating big shapes is not what it is about either. I don't know what your atelier paintings look like but with either approach, drawing is drawing. You are either observing accurately and recording accurately or you are not. You could render this to photo realistic heights with softness and detail but if something is not accurately drawn it falls apart. You should be happy with either approach if you nailed the drawing. Sargent painted loose and free, not deadly accurate. He could take it further and further or just leave it loose and it would still stand. If you are creating beautiful shapes, you can do it with a 0000 brush or do it with a hog bristle brush, if you are accurately observing and recording beautiful shapes, no one cares if it's rendered or not. Are your edges are amazing? Are your values incredible? This is what should make you happy , not the technique or style . Having said all that, I like this painting but it could have had more time spent on every are to with each of the fundamentals in mind.

I think you have done very well in capturing the effect of light with good separation. I can tell you really tried to follow the instructions. It takes time to train your eye to see the drawing issues but just that you know something is still a little off is a really good sign. Each time you do a painting and put this kind of effort into it you will see more and more improvement. Great job!

Wow, incredible work!

great job! there are some nice things happening here. The drawing is a little off on the size of her eyes but you stayed consistent so no one would know.

Very nice job. On the costume, try warming your lights a little more toward amber and cool your shadow color slightly more toward red. Using analogous hues on the color wheel when modeling light and shadow creates more visual interest. It depends on the effect your light source has on your local color too. Try using the most intense color for the halftone next to the core shadow, as you've nicely done on your cheek.

Looking at it again, and looking at it in black and white, it doesn't look too bad ( I think it looks better in black and white). My father used to tell me make sure to work some of the background color into the subject, and some of the colors in the subject, into the background so they look like they share the same atmosphere. In one of the video in the first lesson you mentioned an art teacher told you if you still had a brush full of paint - put it somewhere else in the painting. I'm thinking its the same concept and not about saving paint. The problem is, I wouldn't know how to research it because I don't know what that idea is called. I think its more specific than color harmony. I think that's what bothering me. She seems isolated from the background. I look through your paintings and I see the subject and the backgrounds do share colors and it makes it look like they are completely at home in that atmosphere/environment.

By going that lack with background you making her shadows look anemic . I’d lighten it up and match closer your darkest dark in the head.

Great job you should be very happy with this. I think the value on the left in the light where we would call her jowl you’ve gone a little too dark and warm but other than that, I really like it.

Realized her nostril was not balanced.

Wow. I love the subtle color vibrations!

So glad it helped.

yours is my favorite, so pretty hope I can draw like you

You’ve done a good job and I think it’s great that you’re trying to be critical of the drawing. What you need is a better technique for finding your mistakes. Take the photo and put it right next to the painting and practice rapid eye movement back-and-forth. Do it with each area like the eyes and then do it with the nose and go back-and-forth and really try to notice the differences. In doing this, you will create a more critical eye.

I really love what you ended up with.

yes, still 166. yes, gesso like I do in this course. I use gamvar gloss varnish and add their cold wax medium to it to get rid of the shiny effect. I use a electric hand blender to mix it. stick blender. I use two tungsten 500 watt lights on both side of the painting that is on the wall , on it's side. I shoot through white umbrellas. I bracket for best exposure. always using a tripod on a slow shutter speed at lowest iso. Try to shoot in the f8 area of aperture.

please try sketching first. This is a good attempt but you need to work out the problems in charcoal first.