This is after Ailera Stone's photography.
The artist I was supposed to be copying was Norman Rockwell, but... for some reason I decided to try photorealism instead. I don't like photorealism. Or I do... but... with a lot of fantasy involved. For example here, the girls' hair is not that shiny.
And I managed to make the third girl ugly. All of the girls are prettier in real life, but Brigita really came out wrong. Sorry about that, Brigita.
Also, it seems Gintaré's face is slightly twisted in my picture. None of them looks like themselves, and that is not a good thing :-D
The painting IS a bit yellower in real life. The paper is not blue-grey as it seems in the photo, but more cream-white. Nevertheless, the backgrouns is too light, their clothes are too light, their hair too red... Oh well.
Anyway, Norman Rockwell... I wasn't happy about the three pictures I posted in this blog. I think I feel intimidated by The Golden Rule...
BTW, I didn't know he actually tried a bit of illustration too... I mean book illustration. Here's a sketch for Becky Sharp in Vanity Fair. I love it :-D
and then I stumbled over this: Norman Rockwell's Photo Realism.
Someone distainfully said he is disappointed, because it feels as if Rockwell was "painting by numbers"... Well... if you can paint by numbers like that, go ahead. Anyway, someone mentioned Alex Colville, and that lead me to Kill Your Idols!
Then, for some reason I decided to try my hands on Rockwell mockup... or something to that... as if I knew how! :-D I've enough troubles in copying a photo, and then to change the picture so that it becomes an independent image, and such an image that tells a story about ordinary people with a good dose of humor and compassion... I think that's why I love Rockwell. He's not only a masterly painter, he is kind to his subjects. He might make caricatures of them, but I would say he sincerely likes his models. I don't know if this was true or not, but I get that feeling as the observer, and that's what matters. If he hated people, he was even a better painter than I thought, to make me like the same people he hated...
Compared to Rockwell, my people are paperdolls.
But - I learned a couple of things this time too.
a) USE MORE COLOR!!! Keep painting and painting and painting, even though you are okay with it, even though you are pleased with it. It's not done yet.
b) even though there is black in nature - the pupils were black and so was the make-up - or black enough to be seen as black - don't use black in art. Especially I shouldn't :-D Because those black bits are about the ONLY places in my picture that has "enough" color, so compared to the rest, those bits pop out a bit too well. :-D As you see, the shadows under the hair are just as black, but there I used dark brown, and I'm happy about that. I should have used the same brown in the girls' eyes.
c) my husband told me, when talking about the kitsune, that I need to decide where the light comes. It's okay if it comes from one point or two or more, but I need to be aware of where it comes from and remember that already when I put my brush in water. I painted the girls' faces with skincolor to begin with. I should have started shading already there. I have been struggling to get their foreheads and noses white enough - because they are really rather white. But this would be okay, if I used the skintone as white, and added more color and shadows to the rest of the face, to make the skintone look white.
I also learned that a picture a day is pace too quick. I WANT to give the picture more time. This took... two or three days... perhaps four.
BTW, it's not bad. It could be a lot better, but it's not bad :-)
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