******Minichallenge 357: Dissonant Composition*********

f3nr15 wrote:

WilbaW wrote:

Congrats on what you've done. I agree with Dave, I would never guess that the hand belongs to the subject - it's too dark-skinned and adult-looking for me to make the connection. That's not a problem, just saying they don't look congruous.

One thing I'd do differently is bring the hand closer, so that the tip of the pencil is poised over the edge of the hair, to make it look like we are witnessing the image being drawn. As it is, they don't look connected to me. Maybe even take a bit off the shadow under the pencil so it looks like it's touching the paper. If you did that you could include more of the hand as well...

And thanks for scoring one for the lefties.

Thanks for your feedback Wilba!

Perhaps if I had included more of her skinny forearm in the photo, that might have made it more obvious? Then I could have moved the pencil over to the drawing like you have suggested...

The hand is quite dark, too - most of my time was spent trying to correct the white balance when merging the images, particularly of the shadow beneath the hand/pencil - for some reason, the paper of beneath my daughter's hand was quite blue-tinted. When I tried lightening my daughter's hand, it actually seemed to increase the dis-congruity between the images, at least to me.

Finally, the hand was actually her right hand - I flipped it around so that the portrait appears to be looking at it! That's okay, though - I won't tell anyone if you don't

Wilba's idea was great.

I don't want to turn this thread in to a tute, but I thought it might be worthwhile to show you what I maybe would have done.

I moved the hand over the hair, but then I thought I'd make it a work in progress, like a 6 year old is, and made it look like the portrait wasn't finished. This was my first time trying to do something like this, so we both may have learned something today.

Once again, say the word, and I'll remove this from my site.