I Critique Your Paintings! 🎨

Hey, what's up? Liron here. If you remember a while ago, I did a live stream where I critiqued your paintings. So in today's video, I'm gonna critique the rest of them, the ones I haven't gotten to during the live stream. Now, of course, this is for the people who sent me their paintings back then. If you want me to critique your paintings and you haven't, feel free to send them to me and let me know in a comment down below if that's something you want to see more of in a future video. I'll just save a bunch of them and consolidate it and do one big, another critique video. So without further ado, let's jump to it. So we'll get started here with some of your awesome works. So this one is by Hany Shay. I'm gonna do my best to read the usernames, but if I'm unfamiliar with them or I mispronounce my apologies, but this is from Hany, Rohania Zamir, who you may have seen on the live stream and always on the channel. And thank you so much for commenting and being such a great follower and subscriber. So this is really cool because when I first saw the reference photo, I thought, okay, this is a floral, it's really nice. But then I saw, sorry, the painting, I thought to myself, that's floral, it's really good. But then I saw the reference photo and it just puts on another layer to me of making this more impressive because you see the inventiveness. So the background was completely changed and modified. And I love that. So a couple of things I want to commend you for. First off, again, that creativity with the background looks really good. One more thing that I really liked is notice these nuances of light and shadow here with the touches of purple around the edges of the petals. By the way, my nose is a little, it tickles a bit. I have a bit of allergies, so you'll forgive me if I have to take a break. But in any case, look at all the beautiful nuances of light and shadow and she captured them really well. Look at these yellow leaves. You can see some of that warm kind of yellow here on the petals. Same goes for the purple ones that I mentioned here. You can see a nice touch of purple. So it looks really good. And I love that you were able to preserve the good from the reference and then maybe add your own kind of dimension with the background and originality, which is really great. So you took it one step further in essence. So I really like that. And I think that's a great way of painting based on reference photos. I usually don't change things around, but if you don't like something, change it. Like, don't do what I do with it. Actually modify it to make it more interesting. Sorry, I had to take a bit of a nose blowing break. My apologies. Let's look at another one. So this one was sent to me by Zaid Thakuran. By the way, I forgot to mention like, if there's anything to fix or something like that. I do think one thing is that the center here is a little darker in the reference photo and maybe darkening it a bit more could enhance some of the feeling of perhaps three dimensionality. One more thing to have in mind. Oh, you know what? No, that's actually something I like. This darker spots showing through the background. But overall, I really, really like this one. I wouldn't change too much. Maybe just darken the center, make it a little more like, like it feels like a part of the painting. Very often when something is too light, it will feel kind of detached from the rest. And I get a bit of that feeling. Especially on the right side. So maybe that's the one thing I would change. But in any case, next one from Zaid Thakur. Also another username you probably, or name rather that you recognize from the live streams or just generally even from the comments. Thank you so much for sending this. I will say this. This is a very complex scene. It's one that I would be very hesitant to tackle, to be honest with you. Just because it's so difficult. You do have a very interesting kind of structure of light and shadow, if you will. With the blues and the yellows and it's kind of late. So the sunlight is pretty strong. But on the other hand, there is a lot of nuance. There isn't really that clear of shadows. Now what this means is that we actually need to change quite a lot of things, either to make it a little easier to paint or to stick to the reference photo and really notice all of the nuances of where the light is, where the shadow is. I really like the light and shadow on the structures. I will say that for sure. One thing that you probably changed, I guess, on purpose is that background mountain ridge. To be honest with you, I think I like it without that. I think it was a good choice to remove it. But then what I would do is maybe not remove it, but rather, I don't like how the houses in the reference photo are swallowed by the background. So I actually like that you removed it. What I would have done maybe is increase the saturation even more here and then have this very gray muted, kind of like the rooftops, mountain ridge at the back. And that would have created a nice little contrast of both values, so light and dark, but also colors, meaning saturated versus more black and white. The sky you have simplified gravely, I'm all for it. One thing I wanna zoom out in, I want you to really look at this as an overall structure or piece. The most important thing to get in these scenes is the overall value scheme. So if you look at the land as opposed to the sea, as opposed to the sky, it's really important to get that right value. And when I look at your macro shapes, they're not dark enough. For example, the land could be much, much darker. A lot of the water could be much, much darker, but then some parts of it need to stay lighter, especially here where the clear sky is reflected rather than the clouds. There's a lot of this strong dark versus light motif in the sky with the strong sunlight in the yellow, and then the clouds and all of that, that I think would have really enhanced it. One more thing I would think about adding is those little logs in the water. That's a really neat detail to kind of put something into the water and make it more interesting. The ripples, so you got a lot of them wet and wet, which is great. The next step is actually to darken the top of the water and the bottom of the water, or rather not the top, but the center, somewhere around this area. Leave some parts light, but then use that crisscross kind of pattern to create a sense of ripples. That's really important if you want to convey water in their movement. Overall, on the plus side, I like that you change things. You weren't scared to change things away from the reference. I like how your structures look, especially the pattern of light and shadow on them. To improve, I would look more at the macro values and make sure that I get things dark enough or light enough. I would devote more thought to the overall composition when it comes to color and saturation. So where do you want the saturated color to be? Where do you want the more muted colors to be? And use that to your advantage to create a sense of depth. Okay, I hope that makes sense, but great work overall. Next up, we have Pence Palacio who sent me this, the top left one. The largest one is their version of this scene of the Kalanish stones. Beautiful, beautiful scene. We painted it together live. Bottom left is the reference photo. Bottom right is my version. A couple of things. I love how you didn't go very dark on the stones themselves. You kept them light. This is great. Sometimes a lot of the nuance of the depth and details and richness of the shadows is lost when you forget to do that. Not you in particular, but I also forget to do that. Not going fully black where you can't see any nuance, but keeping things light. So I love that extra step you took in leaving it lighter than I have. I love the colors you used for the sky. Much better than mine, in my opinion. A little more blue, a little less purple ultramarine. I actually prefer your color over mine in that regard. I love how you kept the top part of the sky dark and then as it moves down, it goes lighter. That's a nuance that I kind of missed or disregarded, but I liked that you included that. One thing I would have improved, it has to do mostly with technique or the materials you use, is just notice the flow. Especially down below, you have this big, vast kind of green section that is very hard. It's challenging to get that in an even wash. So do a couple of things. Have the paper at a larger angle that helps the paint move down, keeps those edges, keep the bead, keep the edges a little blurrier and cleaner. One more thing you can do is use a bigger brush. Mix more in advance so you don't have to constantly go back to the palette. Those are the things I would pay attention to. And maybe you can add a few details as well. I know that what ends up with a patched wash like this one is it does look like details and I don't know, maybe it was on purpose. But very often it isn't, so I'm commenting on it. But I will say that you can add some, either spray or splash some water on it. Or even later on, add with another glaze on top of it. You can add some darker grass blades or something like that. That could work really nicely as well. So let's see who we have next. Another one I believe, yes, Spence Palacio. So here's a cool one. So he said that it was based on Nick Rung's paintings. So I wanna show you, and by the way, beautiful signature as I believe I've shown in the live stream as well. So beautiful, beautiful signature. So I did some research and this is what I found when it comes to Nick's work. Really, really beautiful. Nice color balance, saturation balance. Temperature balance that works really well. And a lot of the qualities that make watercolor so beautiful, which is hard edges versus soft edges. Smooth transitions versus really clear ones. Just beautiful compositions. So what I thought I'd do is pull up a couple of paintings of Nick Rung and just put them next to yours so we can better compare them. If you can consider this, you can probably consider this as a study of a certain artist. And I actually think that's a great way of improving. And this is what I say when I say do master's studies. You look at an artist's work and you either recreate. Now, I couldn't find the exact painting that this is based on and feel free to send it to me. I'll be happy to take a look, Pence. But overall, you can still see the similarity. And this is something I would recommend doing. Explore works by one artist, try and recreate them because what you see with Nick's work, and I wasn't familiar with this artist, by the way, so I added him to the painting master's list. So I'll probably review it in the future. It's beautiful, especially the bottom one. I love these colors. What you see is that Nick does use a lot of just glazes, thin glazes with hard edges. So he's not worried as much about blending each and every edge. You can see it in the top portrait as well. Lots of hard edges, but it does come into balance with some smoother transitions like in the shadows mostly, which is great. So if I judge your painting on the merit of that, I love it. I think you did a great job as a study as well. Look at this. Something I especially like is this muscle here, the cleto-mesto, what do you call it, sternocleto-mestoid muscle, I believe. I love how you used wet and wet to create that gradual transition to balance out all of these harder edges, which work really well. So this is what I'm talking about when I say a balance of edges. The colors are great. I see the influence from Nick's work, a lot of warms and cools, very interesting skin tones. One thing I would do if you want to improve this, which I would keep it as is. I love it. I love how the pencil shows through as well. One thing I would maybe consider, taking it one step further and maybe adding the eyes in, maybe adding even one eye in, because from what I've seen, he does tend to take his work all the way till the end in that regard. So he'll choose one detail to really show the facial features, like the eyes, nose, and mouth, and the rest is kind of blurry. With that said, I actually really like it this way. So just take it with a grain of salt and just as a suggestion, maybe as an experimentation, I actually think this is a great painting. Finalize, frame it, sell it, whatever you want to do with it, this is perfect. And by the way, if I wasn't clear, the left one is the one I'm discussing that Pence Palacio did, and all of the right ones are examples of similar paintings that I pulled up. I love this. This color combo is so good with this kind of reddish brown and the strong, I don't know what blue that will be, but maybe kind of a cerulean. So really, really good work. Really good. I love this as a study. It's perfect to me. I wouldn't change a thing. Just giving you suggestions because I have to, but I wouldn't change a thing, really. Next one is by Tarun Vaid. This is the perfect example of work that has a bit more of an illustrative feel to it. So you see a lot of these lines are done by line work. This is actually line work, as opposed to painting in shapes. And it works beautifully. It's really, really good. I'm very impressed with this one. It's the kind of work that I would like to occasionally do as well, and I don't feel like I'm at the level of producing something like this yet in this style at all. A couple of things, like everything, I love everything about it. First off, the colors. You made them way more interesting. You exaggerated the blues and the shadows, which is something you can do. It's a great example. If you see around the shadows again here on the house, on this side as well, compare that to these shadows, which are way more subtle. And that actually shows you how, if you want to get the more realistic look, you have to be more close to the original when it comes to the values, when it comes to the color. But here, we're not talking about that. We're not doing that. We're actually moving away from that and creating something that's more illustrated. So that's great. Exaggerating those colors, making them pop more, wonderful. Next, the colors of the foliage. I love how you approach them. You see more of the yellow. You see more of the nuances of the green. I like this, which is just a flat green, which is, again, it looks good in the photo, but as a painting, sometimes the foliage calls for you to enhance it. And you've done a great job at that. Look at the road here. A lot of people wouldn't have noticed this corner on the right that has a bit more strength to it, but just a bit, and you got it just perfect. I love this. You exaggerated the yellows. You exaggerated the blues. Now, not all edges are hard and harsh here. You have a lot of more muted and subtle edges on the left. So a lot of good things with this one. I love that. Keep going. Do it this way. One more thing to say. If I take a few steps back, the drawing is actually accurate, which is very important. The drawing here is really, really accurate, and it works really well. And I just now noticed that you added those perspective lines probably to help you out with it. The drawing is great. It's really on point. Very good. Look, even in the tree trunk, you get the beautiful nuance of light and shadow. You have a lot of yellow here, and then a bit of blue. Excellent. Really professional, high-level work. I love it. Let's look at a couple more. I love how we have a huge variety. So this is more of what you'd see in an urban sketching type of approach, which I love. I've done a few sketchbooks that look just like that. Really, really nice. So if you compare it to the reference photo, obviously, we won't compare it on a level of this is following it in a photorealistic way, or even in a, what do you call it? It's representational, but it is just the way you want to represent it. So I love how you took elements from this scene, and you just did, just added them in. So you have these signs up here, and then these boxes, and then everything on the counter, and the people working with the mask, which is really cool. I like how you got that blue touch here. And I always, always enjoy flipping through these kinds of sketchbooks that have the date, and they have the kind of description of the place. So good. This is one of those things I really enjoy seeing. And by the way, the food, you can see it in the picture, so it's great that you included it in the sketch. Now, if I would say something to improve, what I would like to see more of is you choose, and you did it to some extent here. For the blues, you went very strong and probably used a bit of opaque paint for the mask, and for these details here. What I would like to see is more of the saturated colors in some select places. So for example, you see that the brown here is really red. It's really strong and saturated. And here, you muted a lot of it. Now, that's fine. There's nothing wrong with muting it, but I would like to see hints and touches of stronger red, brown, maybe on this sign, or maybe on the counter, somewhere there, just to give another dimension of focus. So right now, you focus on things based on maybe the temperature and the boldness of the line work and the darkness of the value. But if you give that extra saturation dimension, then I would also have a reason to maybe stop more on this sign because it's more red or something like that. Hopefully, that makes sense. Now, if you wanna move in a more, I guess, realistic direction, then I would definitely say, work on perspective, work on the drawing. However, I don't know if that's what you're interested in. Maybe that's the style you're after. So if that's the style and approach you're after, don't change a thing, but maybe some of that color thing that I mentioned. If you wanna go in a more realistic direction, yes, you'll have to be more accurate with the perspective, a lot more accurate, actually, with the perspective, with the drawing, with the proportions. But these style of sketches, it's kind of cramming in a lot of details in a small space. So putting things closer, like the food, it's not here, you brought it in the scene. These maybe lamps, you move them a little more into, everything is kind of squeezed together to create one big story for this page, for this date, for this place you visited. So this is really, really nice, I love that. Let's see what else we have here. So we have a couple of works from Giselle, who has a great Instagram username. I think it's Giselle, you can see it later on. So that's really good. If that's really your Instagram username, good job. So we'll start with Harry Potter here. Great work, portraits are tough. Okay, portraits are really, really hard. I see a lot of mistakes that are very common, and I do these as well. So one thing that's really important, I think would really take your work to the next level is, you do this thing where, I see very often, you darken the shadows a lot, and you lighten the lights a lot. So what happens here, if you look at this meeting point of the hair and the forehead, and this is very common. If you look at a reference photo, there is this middle value that's very nuanced in that transition, and we have a tendency, I don't know why as humans, to lighten that and look at it as just one big highlight of the entire forehead and face and everything, and the hair is black. So like very dark hair, very light skin tone. When in fact, it's very different. Look at this top, the shadow here, it's much darker than what you got here, and kudos for getting that scar really in the right spot and really working with the shape of the forehead. That's really good. The values themselves are the main thing to improve. One important thing, look at this left side of the face. So what we have here is essentially what you'd call a core shadow. Anything from the left here is within the shadows, okay? So the, and this is a bit confusing, but the lightest area on this left side of the face should still be darker than the darkest area here. They should not compete. So this entire area that I'm circling right now of the glasses and the eye and the cheek, they should all be darker than this side, and you actually have it quite light here, okay? And that will immediately give a better shape to the entire head, okay? Same goes here from this transition. You see this, there is a darker spot here in between. There is a darker, much darker area here, okay? So this is the main thing I would fix. Be sure to darken where it needs to be darkened. Like look at this entire left side of the face as a shadow. So that always has to be darker than here. You can't have as light of a patch. You can, in theory you can, but here it's not what I see in the reference photo. So that's the main thing I think should help. Another thing I would encourage you to try is, it seems like some of your shading is done with black, just pure black color. There is a little more nuance in the shadows that I see in the reference photo, a little more pink, a little more red. I would try, especially in this section here next to where the glasses go, in the bottom, I would try and improve that, okay? So try to shade, even this left section, try to shade it with a bit more red and yellow. Try to give it a bit more of the nuance of the shadow here. And if you're having trouble recognizing the color, you can always open the picture up in Photoshop or some software like this, and actually use the eyedrop tool to see the color more accurately. I hope that makes sense. Let's move on to the next one. We have a lot of these too. Oh, no, we don't have too many more to cover, and it's good because the video has been running for quite some time, and I'm running out of space on my Mac actually, because I'm screen recording. So coffee drawings, coffee paintings, which are great. I actually wouldn't comment too much on these because it's not the thing I do. So I don't feel like I can give too much feedback. I would say, always focus on the large shapes. The reason why I think the bottom one actually looks much better than the top one is there is a clarity in the shapes. There is the boat and the sea, and the surrounding paper white. Here it's a little more messy, and I would love seeing more of, like you have this, I guess, not a lighthouse, but like a tower next to this dock, and maybe it's an ocean or a beach or whatever. I would love seeing all of this darker than the sky. It will give it more solidness, a sense of like there's actually water there. So that'll be my critique for this one, generally speaking. Here's another one by Giselle. Wasn't sure exactly if, I assume that you did it. If so, that's a great study. I love it. Lots of primary colors. I always loved it, but you sent me this one, so I wanted to include it. Maybe you printed it on a shirt. Looks really nice. Or maybe you painted it directly on the shirt. Let me know in a comment. It looks really, really good. Next up we have by, I believe, Mark. Yes, two paintings, no reference. I love these. These look so good. They have this beautiful abstract quality to them that is very hard to achieve sometimes if you're like me, and you're trying to go for something representational. It's hard to sometimes detach and give that sense of. So what I see here, and I'm not even sure, that's probably an ocean, some rocks. Maybe we're looking from above. Not really sure, but it looks so good. Maybe it's a closeup on large rocks. Maybe it's like a cliff going down to the beach. Either way, it looks great. And by the way, I see a face here. I don't know if, I'm imagining it probably, but here's the nose, the eyes, and the mouth, and the chin. But it looks really, really interesting. Great job. Great job on these. The texture is so good on the rocks. Such good attention to the nuances of the details themselves. And going back to my point from earlier, there are clear, large shapes. You get the sea, and the waters here, and the rocks. There is a lot of clarity in there, and that's really important. Same for the flowers. I love them. One thing I want to commend you on, in addition to what I said, is the colors you use. The Color Harmony is really great. It's very limited palette, obviously. All the colors work well together. And limited doesn't mean just three. It can be four or five, and I don't know exactly, but they work really well in harmony. So that's something to really commend you for. What I would do is do kind of similar to what I did here for the flowers. I may consider myself personally, from the style I want, to add a few more details to the petals, just to give them that sense of not even depth, because you do have the large shapes of the light and shadow. Like you can see here, this is a shadow. This is a light. This is another shadow. But maybe just to give them some more of a texture or solidness. Again, I think that'll help. But other than that, I wouldn't change a thing. And it's framed already, so you're probably happy with these. I would keep these as they are. Not too much that I see to improve here. So this is another one by Alessandro. I critiqued some of Alessandro's paintings on the livestream. A couple of things here. I'll be very succinct. I love what you did in terms of watercolor and painting. What I would refer to is the drawing. One thing to pay attention to is, and I may need to take a break soon just to make sure I have enough space to screen capture. The shapes and the drawing could use improvement. Now, you did a great job. You can tell what you're looking at. The gesture is there, the anatomy. But you did lose some of the gesture, and you could do things that will make this look much better. So one thing is, look at the way Tati here is leaning forward. And it really is clear that he's running towards the audience. Now, what we have a tendency to do, and it's very common, is to flatten that. So if you look at your figure, it's much more vertical than this one that is more diagonal. The center of gravity is in front of the leg, which means he's running. And here, this could be another version of it if we're looking at him more from behind, but we're not. So pay attention to that. It does require studying a bit more of anatomy, and perspective, and gesture especially, and understanding how the body's weight is divided and dispersed. So that's the main thing I would pay attention to here. Other than that, I like the technique. I would bring out some more of the strongly saturated reds a little more, especially here on the shoe and on the shirt. The face looks quite good, actually. And again, you can darken the background more, make him pop more, play around with the values. But for this particular example, I do think a lot of it could greatly be improved just by fixing the gesture and weight. So focus a bit on figures, because you're there. You're doing a good job. Focus a bit on figures, and it will greatly improve your work. One more thing, look at the grass and where it is compared to the reference. Bring it up, bring it up. The angle is a little higher. You see more of it, okay? And you can really tell where it moves through the leg. Here it's really at the ankle, whereas here it's more on this area. So yeah. This one is from Laura Merrifield. And do I feel like I've skipped something? No, I don't think so. Laura Merrifield, really, really nice work. I love that you preserved some of the atmospheric feel to it. That's really important. The key thing for you to improve is look at the colors in a bit more of a painterly way. That's what I would do specifically for this scene. Look at the buildings at the back here, especially. This is where it's most visible. They're just kind of a yellowy gray. And for you, you actually gave each and every one a very distinct color. This is another, I don't know if it's a mistake in your case, but a common issue that I experience, other people experience is, we tend to go for the local color and disregard the weather conditions. So because we know kind of what the color of this building in the background is, we just use that color, this kind of a purple that's similar to the building up front, because we know it. But we're actually wrong about that because the colors change greatly based on the light and shadow conditions. So the fact that the sunlight comes from in front of us, it really influences the actual colors you see. And that's something you want to include. So go yellow here. Don't be scared to connect the shapes and look at how connected they are. You have one building here and then the backdrop kind of like that, very light. Don't be afraid to disregard a local color that you know is there, like the green. Yes, the tree is green. That's true. But look at the color here. It's much more golden than just dark. So that's one thing I would improve. Another thing I would improve is just pay a little more attention to the perspective. This line here of the top of the roof should be much more diagonal. Okay, from this point to this point. You get a little flatter and that can hurt the sense of depth as well. So two things that will improve your depth. Pay attention to the values and the color that is not local and the perspective. One thing I want to say that you've done a great job with is the ripples. I like how they look. Make them a little more flat maybe. It will make it feel more like we're looking at it from the right angle. Okay, same idea with the perspective. Same kind of note. Next up, we have some work by Scars1951, also known by the name Chuck. Thank you so much for sending me these. You wanted feedback, I read your email. Your work is great. It's much better than you think. I have a feeling, especially this one. If you zoom out a bit, you get the macro shapes really beautifully down. The animal in the foreground and then the background, it feels blurry. Even though your technique could, yes, you could improve the transitions, make them smoother. It's still, the message is still expressed very well. What I want to encourage you to do is similarly to the previous tips I gave. Try creating a clear pattern of larger shapes. Meaning maybe darken the entire background or maybe darken the entire animal. Just have something that registers quickly from afar. It's just an optional advice. I love this the way it is. I love that nuance of very nuanced colors. You go for the actual color you see so you keep it fairly muted all throughout. But have that next step of maybe taking some more artistic liberties and increasing or decreasing that, making it darker or lighter. And also maybe some of the colors punchier. Feel free to, just at some points. I love that you stick to the reference it seems and you use natural colors. Just think about how you can enhance them using what I just said. Another thing, yes, maybe improve the technique a bit to have more flow in the background because it really calls for it here. And it's such a good work that just having a blurrier background could really bring this to the next level. Okay, a couple of others that you've sent me. Again, beautiful work, especially this one on the left. I feel that there is, again, this sense of depth. It's very subtle. You have to sometimes zoom in to see it and it may have something to do with the image quality as well. But I do recognize that there is something good there in terms of the depth and the three-dimensionality and the drawing. Portraits are hard. I would give you the same notes I gave before. Pay attention. Don't go super dark on the darks and super light on the lights. There is a lot of nuances in the middle. And we have the tendency to do all of the face light, all of the hair dark. No, this should be darker. This should be, without seeing the reference, I can tell that it requires a bit more work. Okay, but portraits are the hardest thing out there. I struggle with them all the time. So don't feel bad at all. You're actually at a very good spot. I do think you can make a living from it. For not just you, a couple of the other people here, I think you are at a point where you can. I don't know if make a full-time living, but you can make like a side income by selling your works. Definitely, I would feel proud to do that. And this is actually the last one. So I do want to make sure, one second, I'll check that I didn't miss anyone. Okay, good. So it seems like we haven't missed anyone. I really want to thank you so much for tuning in. Now let's wrap it up. So thank you so, so much for tuning in. A lot of beautiful, beautiful paintings. It's fun to critique. It's not easy. It is a challenge. I have to work my brain and think about what I would have done differently. And to give the critique in a way that does not discourage you to do the thing that is authentic to you, but rather encourages you to improve yourself in that direction that you enjoy doing. Okay, and very often there's a lot of nuances involved because many times a part of what you do is very authentic. And I want to preserve that, but another part really needs the more technical work so that it can be brought back in and incorporated into the authentic part. So hopefully the nuance came through and thank you so, so much for anyone who sent these, and great work for your courage. Again, if you think this is a good idea for a future video, simply let me know in a comment down below or just like the video. It will let me know that you like and enjoy it. I'm curious to see if people who aren't the ones who sent the paintings actually enjoy seeing these and learn from them. So let me know and I can definitely do another one. Thank you so much. I will see you again in the next video. ♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah ♪