Help with Eye designs?

I am trying to work out some fairy-esque eye designs for a Library gig later this month, but it seems none of them feel very cohesive. Anyone care to offer feedback? I have this nasty habit of going too far... But when I hold back it seems incomplete. Here are a few I tried tonight. One that I think may have gone far and one that feels like it's lacking something.






Thanks for any help you can offer.

Your doing great it's very pretty ...

I think your skill is obviously there, everything looks great.

I think my only suggestion would be to use similar style flowers together. In the purple design you've got more of a tattoo style rose with soft two-tone blossoms so I would either make the centers of the blossoms black or maybe make small black flick twigs or black (or purple) leaves to tie them to the roses...or choose softer one-stroke technique for the rose with white highlights instead of black (or make a purple daisy instead of a rose if you don't feel comfortable with one stroke.)

On the butterfly I would put the cluster of flowers around the other eye or if you want to keep it all on one eye...just do a few blossoms (in odd numbers) and give them a few little lime or light green leaves.

Your blossoms are consistently nice though....jealous.

D.

I think they look nice too! However, I do have to agree with Denise that the flowers in the first one do not go together. The intesitiy of the roses with the outlines jumps out while the smaller blooms fade into the backround of silver due to their lack of accent.

I would suggest a lighter purple on the roses and outlining them in the dark purple and instead of those smaller blossoms, try rosebuds; so that the blossoms match. I love the white dots, they really add a hint of delicacy to the design. If you want to keep the same flowers as you have there, have you thought about putting the gems at the centers of the blossoms to bring them out? Just food for thought. Overall though, I think it really is a nice design. Afterall, we ARE our toughest critics; I too am very guilty of this.

For the second one, all I can suggest is fewer blossoms and maybe putting a couple above the eye as well to add balance. Other than that, I think you're off to a great start, keep up the good work!

This is a learning process for me too. While I love both pics, Like you I kept thinking that something needed to be different with the top one. And I did notice that the small flowers on the forehead faded into the white base layer. I thought maybe put a pink base layer, but then, I love the white! And, the big purple flower just seemed too big or maybe it needed to be closer to the other 2 roses. I just got stumped myself, lol! But then with Denise and Punky to the rescue, it sounds great! And, you are very talented! When I start painting more and posting my pics, I'm sure that I will need lots of help~

BTW, YouTube has lots of face painting videos. My computer is too slow to for me to watch them (I think I need more power).

This is definately the place to come for help on a design or for critique. I've never seen anyone come out and say "that design sucks!" (Which it definately doesn't!). It's good to ask people for their opinions of your work. Fresh and unbiased eyes can really help if or when a design needs help.

When I was starting out I had the same problem. You know, the "I don't think I"m done with this design yet..." then 5 minutes later you're saying "WHOA... this is way too busy!" or "WHOA...I should have stopped 5 minutes ago..." Sometimes you just have to put the brush down and go do something else for a few minutes and come back and look at the design. I still have this problem from time to time... especially when I'm coming up with stuff for competitions or challenges. It happens to everyone, so don't sweat it and be happy that there's a whole forum of people here to tell you to put the brush down or to keep goin' girl!

All wonderful suggestions. And now that you've mentioned it, I can see it too. lol Funny how that works, huh. lol

I need to get away from using black as my go-to liner... I haven't given myself permission to go anywhere else yet. And that explains why those roses look so bad next to those sweet little flowers. lol

Big Daisy instead of a rose. Leaves... LEAVES! there are no leaves. lol

I can see how beefing up the color in the smaller flowers and adding stones to the center might also make the roses work. My poor one-stroke roses look like 6 streaks of Hot Mess.

Off to find pics of daisies and rosebuds. Thanks so much again for taking the time to critique. Feeling more confident about trying again tomorrow.

I couldn't work it out either until Denise pointed it out, I agree with her suggestion, you need something to tie the design together...

Other than that I love the work! Maybe add some little green flicks for leaves but that's totally up to you.

I too am guilty of using black as my go-to liner; and it's not so bad unless the lines are too heavy. My brush that I use for my black linework is a size 0/5... smaller than a 0. But, outlining things in colors other than black, such as a darker shade of the same color can help add softness to a design. I am also working on that and it's almost painful because I've been painting this way for so long, lol. It just goes to show that we're always learning and improving, because you never can know EVERYTHING there is to know about art.

Awesome feedback Denise! VERY true! I wouldn't have been able to put my finger on the exact issue there.
Anamatoo... BEAUTIFUL work. No matter what you do, your kids will be absolutely thrilled. Everyone can improve, but your work is beautiful.

My favorite one stroke rose
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyi-Y2ATjoA

I agree with the others on everything but the jewels. I think they through the top design off more than the difference in flower styles. First in stylized groupings odd numbers are better than even for some unconscious reason it's more appealing to the eye. Also remember your focal points of the face corner of the eyes, top of nose, chin. Also I would have stuck with the same color gems. On the second one maybe 2 daisies on top 3 one bottom.

Wow Kat, that lady is a genius!

Donna Dewberry? lol. Yeah... she's the one-stroke queen.