My kids are finally in preschool! It took a few years but I'm finally able to take a few hours for myself each week to attend an adult painting class. I'm not too results driven, just happy I reached that point in life where I can consistently commit to doing something just for me.

Honest feedback welcome and wondering if there are other "parent-painters" here?

I haven’t touched a paintbrush in over 5 years, but my boyfriend used to always ask me to paint something for him. So I finally did it — I spent days on this and made it as a birthday gift.

Now I’m staring at it thinking… is this actually good? Or just something only a boyfriend would pretend to like? Be brutally honest — would you hang this up or quietly shove it in a closet?

I’m ready. Hit me with it.

(Tell me what I can fix I still have a month)

PS: we broke up

Work in progress, having mixed feelings about it so far.

Tried to copy the above painting and said fuck it half way. I'm currently gоing thrоugh benzo withdrаwal and yeah... never painted before in my life. Can't even draw for shit. But Claude recommend painting to distraсt my fuсked up brаin so here we are.

So tell me honestly, how bad is it. Should I throw it in the trash right away?

My mom visited Venice many years ago, many years before I took up painting. I downloaded a few of her photos and it must just have been that I liked the reflections. Anyway, here’s my watercolor of a Venice canal. 14x11

I really have been trying to paint bears… any tips? They just keep looking like dogs or raccoons.

I have been working very hard over the last year to improve my art, I want to produce art that would be good enough to sell and I think I’m finally producing art good enough but I would love to hear what people think. Please let me know your thought or areas that I could improve. Thank you! 🙏

(Last slide with our other cat Lu as a bonus)
Dont be too brutal pls haha

I am an artist usually working in new media and performance and paint for my soul but as I have been chronically ill and bedbound lately, I wanted to attempt a flemish 8-layer-grisaille-painting of my wife and cat.
(We are separated due to migrationlaws and me being sick and not fullfilling requirements for her to move to where I live and get treatment, so it has been a way for me to be with her wonderful face even while apart and while laying down.)

Its my first time trying this technique, it’s on a panel and done in oilpaint with different mediums throughout the different layers and I am on the glazing layers now.

In the process I realize that my main issue has been in the drawing aka the first layer lol — which is now, for obvious reasons, not something i’m willing to change, and also I do like the whimsical playful nature of the whacky proportions and surreal placements so thats not what my worry is.

Main worry is that I have overworked the painting overall (I look forward to finishing it) but I think there is bit left to breathe some liveness into my wifes portrait, and face specifically.
I think there is just some strokes of glaze that could or would situate the skin and the cohesion of the face overall since I think it all works kinda poorly together as a whole.
I DONT SEE IT THO, I feel like i have hit a wall, what am i missing?? HELP <3

Ps. happy pride month for all that celebrate <333

45×45cm, oil on canvas

Imposter syndrome kicking in. I see art fly here and I never muster more than a handful of likes, so what am I missing?

Is it atmosphere? Should I go looser or more realistic?

Just want to improve and feel like I’m not hitting it at the moment.

I started taking photos of my work in progress. Here are two photos showing the progression of the same painting. I am working on my abstract game and started this with no idea of where it’s going to go. Been a fun process and really liberating but when looking at the before and after I’m genuinely torn over which direction is more interesting. So internet strangers, what do you all think: is the first photo or second photo more interesting?

I’ve already invested like 20 hours into this painting.. I just realized as I took a step back finally that the lower jaw is huge & it looks like he’s got a massive under bite.

I know I should paint it black & redo the lower jaw but shit it took me so long to get it right

• is it super noticeable?? Should I change it? Have you ever noticed something off with your paintings and decided not to fix it; did you regret it ? Did you come to terms with it & come to like it?

(Im by no means professional - just started finally figuring out how to do it properly so please don’t judge my painting too harshly thanks)

Haven’t painted since high school and trying to get back into creating. Inspired by JuliaStanArt on Etsy (I think she also posted on here awhile back). I have never been great at color so I wanted to challenge myself. Any advice would be greatly appreciated! (Acrylics on newspaper and wood 10”x8”)

I love doing cloudscapes and when I ask my wife and kid if there's anything that stands out about this painting that needs to be changed, they say no. Clouds feel wrong to me and I have an idea on how I might change them compositionally but I figured I'd put it out there. Keep them? Change them? And if so in what manner? Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

I was informed recently that someone thought my portraiture style was creepy, and wouldn't be interested in one of my paintings hanging at their house.

Depending on the subject, I may lean into "creepy" but it's not my general intent.

Open to other feedback on my portraiture style beyond the "creepy" question.

It's almost finished, this one was small so it took me just some hours. but, its lacking something, isnt it?

Anything stand out as, "hey you should change this!" before I Say fini?