Hi Emily, This is a good first effort, well done. You have painted a convincing portrait of a sleepy child. My guess is that it was painted from a photograph using a flat light maybe the camera's flash?
I'd like to offer a few suggestions if I may. The three most important things to keep in mind during the painting process are: shape, value and edges. The first is about designing each shape, apart from what it is (like a sleeve or eyelid), to have it's own interesting area much like a jigsaw puzzle. The difference being that in a painting you want all the areas to be uniquely different in size, position and interest supporting the composition. In this painting, you have basically three equal areas splitting the composition on the diagonal, the dark background, the child and the mother's shoulder. The background and shoulder are both very flatly painted.
When you consider the value scale in painting, you are looking for contrast and a limited value range supporting the idea of the painting. For this painting, you might want to consider dropping the overall value range to a lower register (darker overall). The heaviness of the dark blue background suggests a darker treatment. This would give you more room to model the details and subdue the higher key (brighter value range with no real dark passages) feeling of the subject. When you have a shoulder like this in a painting, you want it to be as
interesting as it needs to be to bring your eye to the main subject. Because the shoulder is so bright, you notice that it has no detail, if it were much darker in shadow, it would not be so.
The edges of the mother's shoulder are lost on the child's cheek yet the back of his head is defined. This feels a bit reversed, you might loose the edges on his head and sharpen the shoulder. We loose edges or soften edges for 'read' of the forms.
These are just ideas to kick around and see if any make sense to you. Keep up the good efforts.
Warm Regards, David
