[spooge demon]

I hope to finish this one at some point. I can�t right now, cause other things press. Like Immi�s column

I think I might add the male character enfolded in the hair...

Another opera inspired illustration; this is Pelleas and Melisande, by Debussy. You might think hey, the hair thing I have heard before. The libretto was of a particular style that is almost incomprehensible today, so don�t ask. But, like so much of opera, great music stuccos over the cheese.

I will come back later and post the ref for the figure, since we have once again brought up that subject in this forum. Maybe we can settle the issue of which is the correct religion next

The ref pic is a photo taken by none other than Alphonse Mucha. He did a brief drawing from it. The grid lines are his, not mine. Most of his photography is much better than this. Other than these smudges, no other reference was used, and it was kinda the point, to see how far I can take something out of my head. I will continue on with it, I think.

edit, damn uub can't read my mind


[This message has been edited by spooge demon (edited January 11, 2001).]

[spooge demon]

oops, I can get that ref now.

[Nex]

Hey, spooge may i shoot some q's at you about this one?:

You use green as base color in many of your pictures.. does this have a specific cause or is it just a favourite color?

I really like the old-oil paint look on this picture. can you give us any insights in what you do to achieve it?

thanks.

[edit: don't burn me please if I do a small critique but to me her left eye looks as if its a bit too far away from the nose.. but I might as well be wrong on that]

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- Nex

..every day sends future to past, every day leaves me one less to my last- pull me under I'm not afraid.
http://on.to/nex

[This message has been edited by Nex (edited January 11, 2001).]

[SporQ]

well, there is something bugging me about this pic. it seems like you matched the ref anatomy very well on the chest and head, but in the ref, the belly is sticking out. in your's, she is bent over the rail, and i dont think it matches up with the upper part. i haven't taken the time to sketch it out myself, that is just my vague(humble) impression. (i hope it is clear to what i am refering.)

the color and light of the peice are perfect, but i'm sure you're tired of hearing that.

if i am wrong on the anatomy, please feel free to ridicule me.

SporQ

[Rinaldo]

Hmmm... not really sure about a few things here spooge. I'm at a loss for what you're got out of the ref. all I can see is the basic pose.
to my eye it looks like you've taken pretty much the rest of it on by yourself. this being the case, I don't understand why you need the ref for a basic pose.
The face in particular bothers me. it feels skewed as a whole. It could be the mouth is off in relation to the eyes, they don't seem to be on the same angle?. but I won't try and trouble shoot it. exept to say that my "somethin's wrong" sense is tingling

Ok, now subjectively, I'm not a big user of ref, and I know you said you tried to go on your own for a lot of this.....buuut.... there are so many nice things about the ref that you've missed out. I'm not saying you didn't copy it right (I'm not talking about copying etc.) but that figure, especialy around the head, has a lot of places that can easily go wrong in that pose. the way you've done the nose in particular looks very clumsy. and the way the head and neck are interacting in the ref is something I personaly would have turned to a photo to explore. as things are I feel the head looks very stiff, not sure why really, possibly over rendered a bit.

But anyway, I'm more interested in what your thinking behind the whole thing was.

on the upside
the hair is beautifull. very nicely done. and as usuial your fantastic skill is evident besides the things I've mentiond.

sorry if that's stepping on your toes a bit I feel a tad confused about what you've presented that's all.

[Sumaleth]

The feel of this image is great.

Just wanted to add to what Rinaldo said about the face; I think there's a handful of little things that, if not wrong, then are contributing to an odd look;

. The mouth is slightly twisted compared to the general angle of the face (not necessarily wrong).

. The eyes seem to be shifted to our left too far, and top of the nose is therefore oddly placed too. I'd suggest moving the eyes to the right more (in their plane) and then re-angling the nose to the new position.

Both things can almost look correct to me as they are, depending on how I look at it. So they're just thoughts.

Row.




[This message has been edited by Sumaleth (edited January 11, 2001).]

[AliasMoze]

Every other painting of a person I've seen you do had an obvious Sargent feel to it. This one is something else, which is interesting.

Her left eye socket just looks deeper than her right. I think that's what everyone's trying to say. Her nose is a little weird around the base too. Damn, I hate to complain, because it really is a nice image, and I'm sure you see these things.

Other than that, I like the feeling in this one. It's got a pretty dreamy quality to it. I'm not familiar with the reference pics your using, though. Great stuff. Can't wait to see this one in its final form.

[Danny]

For some strange reason, this one almost doesn't register in my mind as a Spooge painting. It's so.. so.. clean..
Hair's very nice.. perhaps a bit too full in the foreground considering the relatively small area it's originating from (is it branching along the way? ).
I'm rambling again.
Love to see what you have in mind for the end result.



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Trust in Trance

[shardik]

i really like this new style you are going for but..
[crit] when i open my eyes to this piece they go immediately to the trellis on the left side, maybe you could put some vines or something greenish in it to have it fall into the background... also i think that you should either get rid of that green "bar" or whatever it is or put all of the hair that is hanging down over it...

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-matt

[Light]

I like this one quite a bit. However, I think you should add red colors to the face as the browns get a little muddy.

I'm also not sure about the use of the purple on the vines.

And I think the windows should be lightened a bit or darkened a bit. Right now it seems the light on her face and the windows are competeing because neither is emphasized enough.

I think the feel is a night scene but it needs more work. Maybe try some more reds and yellows. White light doesnt seem to fit as well.

[faustgfx]

*deep sad sigh*



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the law of lead now reigns!@#!/earth crisis

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[TheMilkMan]

I am not a big fan of old master style paintings but I can apprciate the talent in making this picture...hmm maybe when I get older I will get into painting like this..Spooge how come you are painting old school like this all of a suddon? Or have you always done this kinda work...I only know your stuff from the last few months and your website

[Kjetil Nystuen]

Wow... that is an unusuak amount of critics on a Spooge piece... My comment is on the hair. The hair looks good until it reaches the green "band". When it goes over the band it looks a little thin, light. And then suddenly the hair is three times thicker.... I think that looks a little weird. If she's leaning out of the window, then I think your painting has adopted too much of that backward leaning pose on the picture. Without being sure, I believe it's the neck that comes out a little wrong for me. But it could also very well be the torso.Or both. I admire your simplicity of brushstrokes. The way you do the wall in the background. It is beautiful done. You wrote to Micke that you admired his skills of simplifying pictures. It's very funny to observe different ways of simplicity in art. Micke is very good on simplifying shapes, and making a volume out of big flat spaces. You have a special ability of putting tons of information into simple brushstrokes. Like we see in this background.

And it can't bee just my Mac that makes the deep green colors?


AND.. forgot.. It's an incredible piece. Your talents are incredible.

-Kjetil


[This message has been edited by Kjetil Nystuen (edited January 11, 2001).]

[waylon]

Wow, amazing. I don't know if it was intentional, but this painting has an incredible John Waterhouse feel to it. I suppose it's mainly the red hair/green setting combination, but beyond your use of colors, her pose just really seems in keeping with his style. Your Isolde picture, now that I think about it, had the same feel to it, though less pronounced. It's really amazing to see the diversity in your work. (despite the anatomical issues. )

[dr . bang]

Amazing piece Spooge! i REALLY love to see you do more potrait of people, epsecially woman.


p.s: I WANT TO BE YOUR NEIGHBOR

[Frost]

Indeed very nice. I like her mouth, as it gives it a kind of light sneer expression, but I think the top of the nose doesn't lie in center of her eyes.

One suggestion... if a man's weight is suppose to be held by her hair, then I think the hair should be tightly following the geometry of the guard-rail and wall reflecting that, coming straight down from the roots in her head, only angled in the pic from the perspective. Just my perception. =]

Very nice image -- I see you love that relaxing green you often use, balanced and contrasted by the purple, nice!

[Anthony]

I'm gonna have to agree that the mouth is off. But rather than being crokked(mouths can move when gravity plays), it's too narrow(left to right). It looks like a hard thing there, rather than soft tissue. Eh?
BTW, glad to see you're getting into one of my favorite artists.

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-Anthony
Carpe Carpem

[absinthe]

i like the whole thing a lot. where it differs from the photo ref it's IMPROVED, not flawed, to me. the colouring is soothing to the eye...overall i find it very pleasing. great work!

[sheriftariq]

Oh, about the long, long hair, it reminds me of the girl Rumplestiltkin, from the Hans Christian Anderson fairey tale of the same name.

[Jezebel]

I think this is so beautiful.

The one thing that I think is a little odd, although it's not a technical issue, is the hair. I just wonder how such long hair got both over AND under that green band. It seems sort of weird that she might take the time to actually slip the band through her hair just for effect

I only say this because I have waist-length hair and I know how I handle it and how it acts. Unless the hair over the band were slightly shorter I could see how it could sort of "fall" over the band, but otherwise I don't know.

Like I said, no technical issues, and I doubt anyone else on the planet would notice it except me

Beautiful, beautiful piece. I love how you've been painting these expressive women lately. It's great.

-Beth

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Take off your clothes. It's OK - I'm an artist.

[url=http://div.dyndns.org/FOO!]http://div.dyndns.org/FOO![/url]
http://div.dyndns.org/beth/photography

[feebsaint]

Jezebel, I laughed out loud when I just read your signerature... and then I read who it was from! Hi, neighbor!

Craig, Spooge.... whatever you prefer... I wish your legs were so long that they could reach from California to me, in Utah, so I could kiss them. I'll just settle for bumping my chin on the floor by gaping at every pic you post. Are you still a slave to photoshop? (some slave, who can make that nasty tool such an astonishing subject) Or have you converted to Painter, yet?

"I'm Not Worthy!!"

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~-Mike May-~

mikespencil.com

"I Draw Stuff"

[spooge demon]

Wow, I am really impressed by the level of crit given here. I think almost everything said has a lot of validity.

This painting is too ambitious to try without adequate reference at my current level of skill. In a few years, maybe. This was almost a provocation to fail. That was one of the things I was curious about in doing it. I will take some photos of my wife and fix things, but also fix the logical problems in the pose and other issues. I have resolved to work this one out to the extent of my current abilities.

I did a quick sketch/simplification of this pic and everything was fine. But being responsible for every surface the way I have set it up requires more precision than I used here.

Thanks to everyone for the good critique, it has helped me.

[micke]

Oh, too late i guess..
I saw this picture yesterday, but did'nt have the time to answer.

I really like the mood of it. The colours are great as ususal. The draperies looks fantastic!
I think the proportions of the face looks slightly wrong, The mouth and nose does'nt look quite right when compared to the rest of her face. It's hard to tell when the head is in that certain angle. I like the hair.
I think most have been said.
Anyway, looking forward seeing the finihed result.

-Mikael

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Mikael's artwork

[Joachim]

Yup, I haven't had any time to anwer this one yet either. I like it a lot ! Very non-spooge though, as people have mentioned. I guess it's much because it'very soft and without that many hard constrasts and dramatic light. But, I think it's great. And, also, not to bring up any discussion, hehe- But, for use of reference, I think this is a very good way to do it. Esp, if it's something that you've done to challenge yourself and it's not a job done upon request (i mean money involve. I'm sure that if I would have tried to make a pic out of that photo, it would have turned out totally different than yours

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www.JoachimArt.com

[shardik]

jezebel, i said almost the same thing

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-matt