Rave Reviews for my painting of Mike!!!!

Today in Surrealism class we had our homework critiques. Can I first begin by saying that the work that the other students created was AWESOME! I love seeing from week to week what people do in this class. So original and very talented.

I am so freakin excited! I can't even tell you how excited I am. I have been walking around with knots in my stomach for the last few days because I have been so happy with my painting of Mike and yet I have received some interesting feedback from some of my peers and friends. I kept getting what seemed to be the same response when people would look at the piece while I was working on it and when it was finished. Not the response I wanted....

Here is the typical scene:

--I say "Here it is," with a huge smile on my face.
--They look and then stare IN SILENCE and then say "ohhhhh, wow he has a green face" or "that's interesting."
--(See my smile fade.)

But now that I think about it my smile shouldn't fade because I want them to be somewhat wow'd (but I want it in a positive way) because Mike makes me go WOW (in a positive way :) Cheesy but true.

No worries though....I am here to learn, experiment, improve and become the artist that I need and want to be and create art that I LOVE and hope that someone out there (IS IT YOU!!!! :) loves it too....not to mention this was an assignment and not exactly how I want to paint.

I told myself that I was just going to see what my instructor had to say. I worked my butt off and put so much thought and care into doing the assignment correctly. I was happy with it (very happy) so now I just needed to see if in his eyes I accomplished the goal. I DID! Kevin said he really liked it and that I did a great job using the paint application, brushwork, color and design to show the story behind Mike. He said that it all made sense and that I handled it well, especially with showing the layers of Mike through the physical peeking through of his black and white layer.

He only had one criticism (of which I was aware....one of my instructors said we should be able to give ourselves the same critique as our teacher.) The issue was that my background was TOO saturated and competing with Mike who was supposed to be the thing popping out. And he also mentioned that there were some minor issues that I could have fixed like making the shape of the eye better, but that this was minor especially in light of the assignment. But I think I will go back and make these changes, especially since I agree with the suggestions.

Check out Kevin's book. You can get it at Blurb.com It is called ARTITUDE (Kevin Moore.) It will give you a taste of all of his great insights and what I am learning in his class. I highly recommend it.

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/167290

Oh and yes, I would have recommended his book despite being very happy about the critique I received.....come on, who do you think I am ;)

UPDATE:

Here is the most recent version of this painting.......

VERSUS