My Old Gouache Portraits - Analysis

After having some comrades give some critiques on these paintings, I went back and posted them side by side with the reference to have a fresh look. They were painted quite a few months ago, so seeing them now without being involved in the making of them, I've noticed many proportional errors and things I could have done better with how I placed my values and strokes too. I think more than proportional errors, in terms of size, are the planes that are skewed and inconsistent, which throws off the accuracy of the picture.

This first image of Krishnamurti has some major proportional issues. He looks 50 years older. The nose I think is well done, but the edge of the shadow underneath it makes the upper lip stand out, and creates a bit of a plane turn, as if he's got a floppy mouth like that of a Simpsons character. His eye is too high up and not dark enough on the top lid, under the brow and around iris/back of the white of the eye. I tried to put too many lighter values where the shadow is under the front of his brow. I should have melded it all into one dark. The eye on the left of the painting is okay but has some issues with how big the brow shadow and the iris shadow are and where they're located. Overall, the edges are all too hard and there's a lot of shapes that are out of proportion and misplaced. Edges in particular are the hair line, shadow by the ear, mouth shadows and neck shadows. A clearly disproportional shape is the back of his head, which is much more narrow in my painting. I think the background should be a darker value than I have it too. It IS darker than the lightest part of his face (forehead and nose etc.) It would be interesting to try going over this painting and fixing it in gouache, to see how well it reactivates and so on. I haven't tried that yet.

I think his nose is a bit big, but almost proportionally correct with the eyes. The bottom half of his face loses the symmetry and it seems his mouth is going forward with his chin. The mouth is on a different axis than the rest of the features. It has also been squished down with his chin being much longer in the photograph. Squinting my eyes when I look at it, I feel that I missed some shadows in the eyes that would fall under the top lids. I also have some very hard edges in the eyes that aren't in the photo. All the edges are sharp actually, other than the jaw line on the left side (from our view) and his clothes. The photo had his hair cut off, and I think that  adding some more hair that would lengthen his head might be good. The background could also be a shade darker, or a couple shades and the highlight on his hair is too strong. His collar is also blurred out and not a nice edge at all.

This one of Gandi may be the best of the group. The composition and contrast of values with it are more stark and make for a better image. The background is dark as it should be and the white cloth is a nice part of the picture. Overall the proportions are pretty good, but there are a few areas that could use better value judgement and greater edge control. One obvious thing is that there is a white spot in the shadow of his (from his view) right cheek. That ruins that shadow shape. Some spots are too bright, like on his mustache. And some areas that are probably a good light value are just not controlled well enough, and they look scattered and unpleasant. It's not good tiling (placing a stroke and leaving it as a shape.) It's got some good things though.

His eyes are big and his face isn't round or oval enough, as it is in the photo. I like the sense of rounded-ness of the eyes though. They really feel like they are balls in the head, though the left eye (from our view) does raise up and that does look like the photograph. There should also be some light above that eye lid, but there is not. I liked the eye highlights on the Gandi image more than these highlights though. They are too big here. The glabella shadow is much harder than the image and it should be a soft blending into the forehead. I also think I tried to inject too much information into the shadow side of his face, but could have made it all much simpler with less halftones. I think the symmetry of the axis' of the features are a bit off too and the chin needs to be bigger. The background has a window, but since I drew more that the photograph shows, I should have added the edge of the window pane that would be seen behind his head and above it. The values of that window should be lighter too. There are issues with the mouth shape and edges. The wall of the background should have a darker value too, more like how the bottom of the window is portrayed in the painting. The ear is also too small and should be darkened.

This one has some cool wet tiling to it. The values are definitely lighter in the painting and it would be better with more contrast. There are various shape proportional errors with the eyes, but I don't mind the look of them either. The nose is small and doesn't hold the same 3 dimensional weight and perspective as the photograph has. The value on his neck is too light and the hair by that side of the chin could be a little thicker and give the face more width with it. The edge of the face on the right side of the painting is also a bit narrow next to the eye which slims down his face too. The ear is very much blended into the hair and not seen at all, which could be okay but it's too smudgy. Overall though, this one has some things I like more than the other paintings. I think the edges are managed better and the whole image has been approached with a good amount of care.

That's my analysis on my first ever gouache portraits that I did a while back.

Thanks for reading.

- Anthony