@Adrian-K

Absolutely gorgeous! I love it.

April Prompt - The Moment Before

This is my first SVS Prompt, I figure these prompts are a great way for me to work on content, meet the community and showcase my skills while I build a portfolio.
I hope you enjoy it!

www.jessicajolicoeur.com/wixsite.com/jessicajolicoeur

@jessicajolicoeurart

Hi Emilie,

I am a horse crazy girl too! I have been riding since I was 12, we owned 5 horses at one point and even though I have not ridden on a regular basis as my horse is 29 and semi-retired I am a horse girl for life.

As a kid I would often draw horses and fairies, I still do a little of both.
I was asked to illustrate a journal for adults which was inspired by the author's love for fairies and intentional living.

In my twenties, I moved on to human subjects and did portraits of people and musicians and I started a window and mural painting as a side job to the retail jobs that I had.

My dream job is authoring and illustrating for kids and this year my focus along with painting and contributing to the Art Crawl this coming October, I am planning to restructure my website and get some interest and contact with literary agents.

It is really nice to meet you and I am looking forward to seeing more of your work!

Your newest work is quite a bit more developed compared to your older work.
You seem to have settled into a nice understanding of the oil paint and how to move it around the canvas, your brush strokes are not overly complicated but convey a sense of light and movement without commanding too much work with the paint and your palette is much more sophisticated.
You have also properly developed your background, mid ground and foreground in equal measure making for a much more balanced painting and the composition is well thought out.

Well done!

Hey there,

Welcome to the SVS Forums, its nice to meet another artist and I am sure we all look forward to getting to know you.

Jess

I like number three. It really stands out and the detail of the bees shadow is very simple but effective.
It is minimalist and that makes it stand out.

Great paint over, @nyrrylcadiz!
That is exactly what I was thinking and suggesting in my comment.
It looks great.

Wow, what a beautiful book.
I don't think you would have too much trouble getting some smaller, individually owned book stores selling your book.
It is so beautifully illustrated and put together.
It is worth dropping by a few stores to meet the owner of the shops that you can get too and emailing other ones further from reach.
I don't know what your price point is but I can imagine a book like yours selling for a little more in local stores because it is bespoke.

Much success to you!

One more thing, I didn't really mention the background much at all.
There is a stand of trees in front of the moon, the top of the snow on the tree disappears against the moonlight.

Here is a photo of the trees directly in front of the moon illustrating that the shadows should be stretching directly forward towards the foreground but not completely into the foreground as they are in this image. Keep proximity in mind here.

https://www.google.ca/search?q=snowy+trees+in+moonlight&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjl38-O7c3gAhXKslQKHYX2C5sQ_AUIDigB&biw=1242&bih=632#imgrc=KEPJ9jFrLGv9tM:

The tops of the trees as you have in your image would tend to blend into the moonlight a little bit as the snow is the same color value as the moonlight but if you make the most forward-facing part of the trees that are closest to the foreground a little bit darker with the left and right sides of each tree being lighter to reflect the moonlight and brightest at the top it will give your background a little more dimension.

They are really cute and do seem to be telling a story about friendship both being wrapped up in the scarf and sharing a special fireside moment.

I think they are fairly well lit but I would change the tone that lights them both up to reflect the close proximity of the fire, make it a little more golden yellow and a bit brighter on their faces.
The shadows on their sides of their faces are quite strong so a brighter light source would reflect that more accurately.

I would also lighten the snow around the fire as well making it a bit brighter with a shadowed ring directly beneath the fire on the snow and the ring of light around the fire stretching a little further out and more evenly.

The shadows behind them should be a little stronger but not too much and should stretch behind them a bit.
Add a little bit of color on that snowy branch too, just a little at the tips that are closest to the fire. The snow is so white that it will reflect the yellowish light of the fire and this will add a more polished and natural look to it.

The bottom right corner of the house should be brought down a bit while the bottom left corner is raised a little.
The angle of the bottom of the house is a little too sharp and it appears as if it is stretching into the air a little too much.

The angle of the image looking down from above to the characters below would have the house on a more even level with the ground that the characters are sitting on just like the log is more level.

You may also want to make the door a little bit smaller to compensate for the fact that when you bring the bottom left corner of the house up a bit you are losing a bit of the door in its current size and position.
Making it a little bit smaller will help keep more of the door in the frame.

Everything else looks really good.