Shooting for an impasto/oil look

[DannyRaphael]

Does the impasto texture look "too contrived"?

[Toad]

Danny:

Long time no talk.

First, I really like this photing (photo-painting?). It is a nice capture, and the background works very well with it. The heavy, uneven application of "paint" and large brush strokes capture the spirit of impasto really well.

I think the texture may need a bit of work yet - it is a little "regular" for true impasto - I am referring here to the sort of downwards sloping semi-circles here. They are a little too even in size and shape - as if the painter had used a stamp of some kind to impress the pattern in the thick paint. You don't see this regularity very much in impasto.

van Gogh's "Cypresses" is about the closest to this visually because of the swirls, but his actual brush strokes are not really that even. I would suggest taking a large look at the paintings of Frank Auerbach - maybe "Primrose Hill" or "The Sitting Room". He uses heavy daubs like this, but the stroke depths and patterns are much more varied.

In PS, maybe the texture could be slightly less opague - or have a low frequency wave distortion applied to it before applying it to the painting - just to break up the pattern.

I really like this one a lot, and I think this is a great technique.

Is this family?

Best
Toad

[Cheryl H]

Overall, I like the look the texture gives to this. However, there are a couple of places on the face where it's a bit too much. If you could reduce the opacity of the texture in those spots where it's distorting the face, it would be much better.

[DannyRaphael]

Toad, DN, Cheryl:

Greatly appreciate the feedback. Some good stuff that I'da never caught. Thanks for your thoughts.

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Got a request via PM for the original.

To put it into perspective the pic I had to work with was about 2" x 1-1/4", really dark and pretty blury. This is a "cleaned up," enlarged version.

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I also got a question about "how."

Figured I could dodge that one since we're in the critique forum , but I'm glad to share since someone was nice enough to ask:
* Action 1: The one used (and posted in) the "Soccer Anyone" mini-challenge. (Click HERE to be taken to the post where this action can be downloaded.)
* Action 2: Under construction to be published soon. (real) E-mail me if you'd like a beta version.

As a final step I tried my luck at applying the "impasto" pattern that came with the Photoshop 6.0 Wow book.