My favourite web about art and design, booooooom, started an initiative for us the members of the platform so we can get honest feedback from other artists: the booooooom Feedback Club.
How it works
To get involved, you have to also give feedback to other artists. The artworks that I found went from a very amateur one to others with great quality and very complex. The format were also very wide; from a print to a canvas or a large mural painting.
The artwork: about the photogenic
I asked for feedback about this one, a oil painting that allways casts doubts to me about how I painted it.
And this is the feedback that I got from other users:
Positive aspects — what’s working?
- I like the strong complementary colour scheme. The brushwork is confident and unfussy. The narrative is intriguing and engaging. I like the bits of underpainting showing through. Almost gives the cats a glowing effect. The left side of the piece in general is really nice. It’s rendered in a painterly fashion, the colors are clean and it depicts a real sense of space. The red and blue really make everything pop!
- The colors are beautiful. It feels like the composition is really thought out and a story is implied with the positioning of the figures.
- I love the rich colors and highlights on the cats.
- I really like (what appears) to be the orange/red underpainting showing through! It really gives the cats an interesting glow that makes them pop! The composition, placement of the elements, and color is working well. You should feel really good about this painting!
- I like the way the underpainting is coming through on the cats. The lighting on the girl with her arm around the other girl is also really nice.
- Strange subject matter, it is like a puzzle I’m trying to figure out. The tight composition feels claustrophobic, which may be serving the piece’s message. Painting technique is well handled, the orange under-painting looks great, especially with the cats. Great hands! Color choice is unique and adds to the mystery feeling. With all the female figures holding each other and turned away it makes man feel alone, or out of place. I love the orange tones throughout the piece, highlighting the cat, popping through in the hair and on the pillow. I love the pop with the blues too.
Suggestions for improvement — what isn’t working as well?
- The saturation of the blue sky background could be less intense, allowing the depth of the painting to read from the front to the back. This might let the painting be taken in with an order rather than all at once.
- The figure on the right feels underdeveloped. It’s his face really. I think its lacking the crispness of the rest of the piece. The rest of the piece has such great detail to it that I really wanted the one face turned to me to have more life to him, especially with his dynamic pose.
- The detailing isn’t consistent throughout but I’m unsure if this is intentional.
- The guys face maybe needs to maybe be brought more into the foreground lighting wise?
- The bottom portion is really working, but the man’s face appears to have been over worked a bit. It is really working that the foreground is bold & confident and that the elements in the background are more blurry and less defined. If the man’s face was painted with the same confidence as the cat’s faces and figure’s hands, the painting would come together perfectly!
- The face of the guy looking at us seems dirty, like it’s covered in soot, but I think it’s intended to look like shadow. I think re-working his face could change the painting a lot because he is something of an anchor/guide into this strange scene.
- Theubject matter might be too strange or disconnected. The feeling of mystery doesn’t resolve, I’m not able to figure out what to take away from the painting, which may not be a bad thing if that’s what you are going for. Also the loss of contrast in the man’s face doesn’t look pleasing to my eye. The cat on the left’s expression looks like it’s in between two expressions which may have been better to capture, and the painting of the sky leaves more to be desired, perhaps it was painted too hastily. The paint around the man’s belly button looks too light in value or not blended in well.
- I think the darks arent quite dark enough. Theyre too muddy, particularly in the mans face and the sky. It would add more depth to the sky, and integrate the tones of the face a bit more with the rest of the painting.
Conclusions
It’s clear that there is recurrent good and “to improve” feedback. The good feedback is that most artists liked the composition, and the fact that there is underpainting showing through. They also emphasize “the mistery”, a topic that I work thoroughly. Regarding the “to improve” feedback, it’s clear that there are 2 elements that need to be repainted: the sky and the man’s face.
What about you? Do you agree or disagree with th in the feedback from the booooooom Feedback Club?