Subjective Critique

When I first found the painting “Portrait of Lydia Delectorskaya” I felt that it was boring and unappealing. Why I felt this way about the painting can be explained in a couple reasons. One reason being the sloppy looking outline around the character of the painting and the line that makes up the face. The line around the character varies in thickness and looks smeared in some places. The outlines that make up the face just look uninteresting as well. Another thing that stood out t be was the look of the paint and brush strokes. The brush strokes are very visible in the paint, but the storks don’t follow any pattern and just look unappealing. There is also inconsistency in the shade of the paint with some spots appearing darker and lighter randomly. Finally the lack of depth in the painting just left it looking simple and boring. The blue half of the face appears to be like an attempt to add shading and maybe depth to the painting but it just leaves it looking out of place. Thinking of a way to redo the painting I would first add depth to the portrait with shading and highlights. The colors and brush strokes look unappealing on the original painting but I would want to still use the colors and the black outline of the original. I find them to be interesting parts of the painting and would want to re-use them. I also think that smoothing out the angular shape of the character and adding more complexity to the face and hair could make it more interesting.