It’s hard to put some things into words. The handprint sort of represents… gah… words… um… boundaries/limitations/internal and external restrictions/inhibitions…? Sort of mix those together, bake at 350 for 20 minutes and you’ll be close to what it is supposed to mean?
By the way, thanks everybody, this is great to get feedback. I’ve already got some ideas for what I’m going to do tonight when I work on it.
Oh, one other comment about what is planned-but-not-there-yet. I only just finished the detail on the tube of paint last night. There will be a few more wisps of hair on top of the tube, I just couldn’t put them in until I had finished what was underneath. Right now the hair is all to the back end of the tube; it will be more balanced once I add the other hair.
Ahhh, when you said your teacher wasnt buying it “whatever that means”? I was under the impression that it was other than the hair not looking “more realistic”(?)
I’ll stick with my original interpretation indicating that the razor blades are not needed to indicate your inner turmoil. The choice of colours, the hand print, the facial expressions all have deep meaning - my gods! even to me as an onlooker! Yes, I picked up on the moods(bipolar) without the razors. I dont know - maybe you can add a little red/pink to the hand/wrists if you wanted to bring out the “cutter” part of you? isnt it more important to do it the way you want vs the way you think you have to do it to appease the teacher?
And I so understand the " I actually have several different views/meanings inside for different parts of this painting." As i indicated with my review - is it a friendly hand, comforting you in your time of need - or a controlling hand making you do things (that you may or may not want to do or may want to do but you know can be dangerous - or is it trying to keep you in line so you dont harm yourself?)
Beautiful painting. I like anything I can connect with. After looking at it more - I finally get the paint tube…
I’m not normally the type to gush, but, WOW, you are really growing your talent in leaps and bounds. Both of the paintings linked in your OP are stunning.
Going to spoiler the rest for the same reason everyone else did 
[spoiler]1. I think the hair itself is just fine the way it is. I don’t think you would want to add more as it would take away from all of the texture and movement that the hair now has. I’m not sure what your teacher isn’t buying about it (but, based on another thread about him, I think we need to buy him a few adjectives and show him the definition of the word “vague” :rolleyes: ) The paint that is streaked in the hair right at the forehead (the one dead center and the line to the right of it to be exact) - the lines are a little harsh - you may want to soften them up just a touch. As for the amount, I think you have it just right. If you wanted to add more, I’d say to be careful, you don’t want to move from the sublime surreal you’ve got going to cartoony.
I like how the background goes from darker at the top to lighter at the bottom. I think it really fits the whole mood of the piece. The painting is also darker along the left edge. I think with everything gradually getting lighter as it goes towards the bottom right corner gives a really nice balance overall.
Yes, I agree that the nose is slightly out of proportion to the rest of the face. However, I think the dark blue paint on it minimizes that. In fact, I don’t think I would have really noticed if someone else hadn’t mentioned it. So, unless it’s really going to bug you you might want to leave it as is. Because (don’t laugh) it’s a really well done nose. Noses are hard.
I know you didn’t ask (and I know you wouldn’t do it) but don’t ever ever add lines to that other painting. Your teacher should be smacked upside the head for even suggesting it.
BTW, that paint tube has some really amazing dimension to it.[/spoiler]
The “whatever that means” was just that I thought it was an odd way to phrase it. It was in the context of a larger discussion, though, where the meaning was clear that he felt I hadn’t quite ‘gotten there’ with the hair, quality wise. He’s a frustratingly vague teacher. We don’t get graded on anything until the final review (next Monday) but we have critiques periodically on different assignments. (After the critiques you still have the rest of the semester to work on the painting before it’s graded.) There is a midterm review where you bring in everything you’ve done so far and he tells you how he thinks you’re doing, so you have some sense of it. He said I was at “about an A minus” and so I asked him what he suggested I do to bring the grade up, and he said “do better”. When pressed, he said “do better paintings” but that’s the most I could get from him. No specific advice, no valuable critique of any kind. Frustrating.
As for the razor blades, while I can accept that you don’t get them, and while aesthetically I may or may not be totally sold on them if it wasn’t for the assignment, I do feel they are important for what the painting is about. I absolutely do NOT want to put red on the hands or wrists–I think that would be cheesy and way too in-your-face, plus it would railroad them into one pigeonhole (to mix metaphors) when they have a lot more meaning than just “hey, I used to cut myself”. For example, they are cutting the hair (will be more apparent when I get that part painted back in) which is an element of the whole “modifying myself to become art” theme. I can understand why it might not work for everyone, though.
The hand is not meant to be negative. Controlling? Perhaps, but in the same sense that I control the paint brush. But not menacing or anything.
Thank you! I am so in love with painting. I could kick myself for not having started sooner. I’ve been painting for about a year and a half now (though for 6 months of that my paint stuff was in boxes) and I feel like this is the first time I’ve ever really been able to express the art that I felt I had inside. I wish I had started years ago. Dammit. This time, since I started painting, has been by far the most fulfilling “creative growth” time of my life.
(And yeah, now that it’s pointed out to me the nose IS going to bug me until I fix it. LOL)
It still would–the change I’m thinking of would be subtle. Just a shade lighter than it is now.
Opal, this is the best work (IMO) that I’ve seen of yours so far-- you’re improving fast. The only things that stood out immediately (and might be a matter of taste) are the hands, which might just be unfinished. The hands, compared to the hair, say, seem a bit roughed out or glove-y-- like on the right hand’s fingers, the back side of the arced-back index finger is so smoothed out on the contour that it seems a bit artificial (unless it’s meant to be a glove-- there’s no sense of knuckleness left). Perhaps the fingernails and knuckles just need a bit of definition. I like the handprint a lot, but I think it needs more of a handprinty texture-- right now it’s more painterly. Wants some decalcomania character, perhaps? And I like the presence of the razors, but you might want to doublecheck their perspective (esp vs the notches on their sides), esp. the left one. Nice work, and great progress (in the least possibly condescending way). It’s nice to see people in art school working in a figural style again-- takes a lot of training.
Yeah, that’s another thing I like about it. It’s not just a bunch of random blobs.
Ah, gotcha. That’s different. I somehow thought you were going to make the whole thing one solid light color. My mind was going “no No NO! Help! Stop! Police! Murder!” (because I tend to be over dramatic 
).
First off, does anything stand out in a bad way?
>> The brown nostril draws the eye. And maybe the ear – I don’t know what your ear looks like, though, or what you intend it to look like. And it’s not the focus of the painting, so it doesn’t draw the eye. The nostril kind of does.
Next, I think I want to lighten the background surface in the upper right corner… I think it goes too dark compared to the lighter stuff below. yea or nay?
>>No opinion on lighter or darker, but would like to see either more contrast with the hair or the hair somehow becoming the background. Again, it didn’t draw my eye as a bad thing.
Third, and most importantly: My teacher thinks that the hair “needs more work” because he “isn’t sure if he’s buying it”
>>Unless he has something specific as an example, I’d ignore it. Does he want a section to look very 2-D, contrasting sharply with the 3-D? That might be cool. Does he want it more 3-D, with locks seeming to come toward him? Not so interested in that. Does he want more individual hairs? More paint? I think you’ve got a good balance there. Unless you can think of something you’d like to do, just forget it.
Lastly, I am not sure how much paint I want in the hair (the blue/purple/pink paint, not the actual painted hair) so I’d like an opinion… enough as it is?
>>I like the balance as it is. The paint is focused in the face and radiates out to the hair. The hair has less coverage because it hasn’t gotten there yet. It comes from the core and goes out into the rest of your life.
*by way of example, his opinion of >>this<< painting was that I need to add some lines to “break up” or “interrupt” the circular flow of the image.
>> I agree, that’s stupid.
Extraneous comments – I think the razor blades are interesting, adding to the surreal content in a major way, and that the hand in the lower right has a lot of personality.
Now I can read the other replies.
I’m going to get fairly specific in the critique that follows; I leave the artistic interpretation to others.
The painting’s very striking! The eyes really come off the page, and are very good.
That said, the ear was the second thing after the eyes that I noticed because it looks a bit odd in proportion to the face. Thinking about it, perhaps it’s because the hairline in that portion is a bit too far back to give a sense of where the ear is. At first I thought it was a bit too low, but on consideration, I think that having the hairline brought forward would help with that perception. Most people have some ‘sideburn’ going, and this painting doesn’t.
Also, the inner rim of the ear looks more like an outer rim. There shouldn’t be a rim in the front middle of the ear, so to speak. I would recommend spending a little more time with photorefs to see how an ear looks and works from that particular angle.
People have already talked about the nose, so I won’t go over that.
You might want to add just a leetle touch of shading to the far edge of the face to make the lighting seem a bit more natural, so that the curve of the face is falling away from the light, so to speak. As it is, the curve of her far cheek and forehead looks slightly ‘cut out’ to me.
Hair on top looks good to me, it’s just the hair down by the chin that needs a tad more work to make the drifting look as good as it does up top. Oh! I think I know what he meant – the lay of it doesn’t look quite natural – as it is, the shading of the curve of the hair going upward right above the face doesn’t look right (the head is tilting up so the ‘dark bump’ above the face is conditioned to be 'top of head with skull underneath, which doesn’t work for this angle) and may be contributing to the ‘circular’ look that the teacher is dinging.
I agree with the previous poster that you should be fairly cautious about doing anything more to the hair for the most part however, as it’s already done very nicely in the largest part of the painting.
Great work overall – I don’t think I’d be able to paint like that without some serious classwork and free time, and of course, natural talent. 
Reply on replies.
Razor Blades:
I really don’t understand the negative reaction to the razor blades. They’re tools for gosh sakes! I, personally, use them more for house painting than portrait painting, but they’re tools. They can be used for all kinds of things, including making art.
The way they’re used in this painting creates a conflict between seeing the painting as a 3-D representation and seeing it as flat. I find that very clever and I react to it viscerally. That’s visceral as in causing a physical reaction when I study it, not visceral as in causing fear. In this painting, they cause me about as much fear as scraping the last excess paint off of a newly painted window does.
The painting would lose a level of surreal without them. Even without the personal aspect. Please leave them in.
Hands:
It’s a self-portrait, so of course all of the hands are yours. None of them are necessarily attached to the you in the portrait, physically, but then they don’t need to be. I hear a ‘Voila!’ rather than a ‘Poof!’, but that is definitely a hand of creation. It has personality.
Handprint:
For me, this is like the razor blades in that it creates conflict between 2 and 3 dimensions. The handprint is 3-D. At least it seems that way to me, as it’s currently painted. Can you tell I’m spatially oriented? If you wanted, another handprint or fingertips-print could be added that was flat. Not that I can see a good place to put them. Probably a bad idea.
>>>Thank you so much for sharing this painting, and the process of painting it, with us.
I’m gonna add my comments before reading the others. My first impression was “Oooh, neat!” I wouldn’t have expected that at all. Nothing really popped out immediately (other than the eyes), before reading your questions. Well, the razor blades did, but that’s because they seemed out of context, initially.
Upon reading your questions, I really started to contemplate what the painting was saying to me. And it occurred to me that it is an artist becoming. The hands painting are clearly not her own, but perhaps mentors or artists that inspired the woman. The hand print on her shoulder is sort of a forced inducement to the woman to relinquish herself to process of taking concept to reality. (I have no idea how to make this make more sense.) I guess it’s encouraging her to change. The razor blades on a plain, white background tells me she is ridding herself of artistic block and unimaginative thinking in contrast with the bright hues of the paint on her face and hair. The other thing is that the razors appear to about to cut into her hair meaning that she still faces the uncertainty of whether she can free herself of the block. The face being the most expressive part of the body reflects her inner creativity, which is why the painters are focusing on her face and have left the rest of her visible body untouched by the brush. The tube flowing paint into her hair and her hair wrapping around the tube contrasts the negativity of the razor blades and her subconscious embrace of this process. After all, rising above your inner struggles can be an emotionally violent process ending in favorable results. You might lose something of yourself in the process. Her expression seems passive, yet pensive (the eyes), indicating that she’s open to the process, though perhaps somewhat protective of herself.
I’m not really well-versed in art, so this interpretation probably sounds very pedestrian. But I know what appeals to me and why. Hope that helps. (And I hope I don’t look the fool…art can be such a very personal experience.)
As to your questions:
[spoiler]Nothing really strikes me as “off” but I did find myself focusing on lot on the way the hand in the bottom right is positioned. It just doesn’t quite jive, but I’m not sure it detracts from the painting. It’s seems a tad flippant, actually, and not as persuasive as I’d expect having just been on her shoulder. I don’t know what to make of that.
Please leave the background contrast alone. It reminds me of a studio, with lighted areas and unlighted areas, which I think is important to my interpretation that the woman is as much artist as subject.
The hair is fine. Any more work to it and you’re going to end up having to incorporate a tube of Dippity-Doo because it *will *seem overworked.
I mentioned the paint in the hair in my interpretation, so more paint in this area is going to change my connection with her external appearance (the “before” aspect of her metamorphosis, if you will). It really depends on how immersed she should appear. More paint would tell me she’s further along in the transformation (would I see it at that point? I don’t know). Also, I tend to treat hair imagery in a Samson-type of way in that the longer the hair the stronger the individual, but not necessarily physical strength. Something about her, the way her hair is splayed and it’s length and apparent health, tells me of her inner strength. Despite her pensiveness and willingness to be transformed, she has a strong nature. More paint would take the naturalness away, obviously, and I don’t think it would balance her between the past and the future.[/spoiler]
Incidentally, it’s really quite fascinating to see a work in progress. Despite my untrained eye, I think you’ve certainly got a lot of talent. Can’t wait to see the finished piece.
Aha!!! I got it! Yay me! The transformation part at least, but I still see the hands as someone else’s…I dunno, I guess they could be yours.
Brown Eyed Girl - I really enjoyed reading your interpretation. It’s really, really interesting to me to see how my work comes across to someone who doesn’t have that only-me peek into my brain. You did nail it in one as far as the transformation into art goes. Is it me, is it someone else… I’m ok with letting that be up to interpretation. The important parts of the theme, for me, are first the idea of a person transforming into artwork (rather than simply creating artwork) and second, the sacrifice/modification necessary to accomplish the first point. Those are, for me, the driving points.
General comments: I’m glad some people finally helped me figure out what was wrong with the nose, which had been bothering me but I couldn’t figure out why. I have reworked that nose so much, and I think that each time my corrections have “overlapped” the other parts of the canvas, and so by sheer numbers, my corrections on the nose have made it too big. Also, the nostril is too noticeable. Unfortunately, this is how the source photo is… there is a gap in the paint, and so there is this jarring flesh-toned nostril in the middle of a sea of paint. I have tried to pretend there wasn’t and paint it as if the paint was there, but that looked like crap. As an artist, I’m just not there yet skill wise to fake that. So I have to try to go with my source material and hope that when I get the scale of the nose back to where it should be, the nostril comes into control as well. Heh.
The razor blades with regard to their perspective and the notches: oh absolutely. Here is the funny thing: I looked everywhere but I didn’t have any razor blades in my house!! So I made one out of a cut-out piece of a 3"x5" notecard and a silver Sharpie to get a reference photo to “rough them in” and only just today actually bought a pack of actual razor blades* to use to make them look correct. I’m well aware that they’re very rough right now, and are pretty much just “placekeepers” for what the “real” razor blades will look like.
*as well as a new dropcloth, since my cat PEED ON MY OLD ONE LAST NIGHT!
I love the shading on the throat and shoulder, and the hand print. Wonderful.
I love it. It’s wonderful!
I notice the colours get somewhat duller into the upper left of the painting, but I suspect that may be an artefact of the photo you took of it and isn’t necessarily in the real painting.
But if it is like that, higher contrast on the upper left hand and more vibrant colours in the hair in that corner would be my only suggestion.
Everything else, considering what has already been suggested and your own planned intentions, is perfect.
[QUOTE=OpalCat]
The nose isn’t that bad. I know people who have big noses and this isn’t an impossibly large one. I look at the painting and see a beautiful woman. Question for you: how do you feel about your nose? Maybe you’re unconsciously accenting it as a focal point.
You’re the artist, but I don’t much want a photograph. I know exactly what they are already and if they’re not quite perfect etc. that only reminds me that this is a painting. This is as it should be IMO.
If you take out the razor blades, this could have been painted at any time in history. The razor blades put it in the not-too-distant past.
BTW the interesting thing about the handprint on the shoulder is that it isn’t smudged or anything. The subject didn’t resist; the touch wasn’t forced on her.
The nose isn’t that bad. I know people who have big noses and this isn’t an impossibly large one. I look at the painting and see a beautiful woman. Question for you: how do you feel about your nose? Maybe you’re unconsciously accenting it as a focal point.
You’re the artist, but I don’t much want a photograph. I know exactly what they are already and if they’re not quite perfect etc. that only reminds me that this is a painting. This is as it should be IMO.
If you take out the razor blades, this could have been painted at any time in history. The razor blades put it in the not-too-distant past.
BTW the interesting thing about the handprint on the shoulder is that it isn’t smudged or anything. The subject didn’t resist; the touch wasn’t forced on her.