Ollie and Luther by Buff Holtman

From the Artist: This composition came out of a very tense meeting with a couple who were going to lose their house. They were blaming everyone else for their troubles. It was frustrating and sad. Once I found the composition I liked, the painting was easy. I wanted to relay the lost feeling the man had while showing how well dressed and understanding the woman was. The most memorable feature on the man was the missing teeth. I've learned to start with the area that prompts me to do a particular theme and the missing teeth were "it." Once I had the man's facial features, the rest fell into place.

From the Painting Guide: Starting with the element that grabbed your attention in the first place is a good approach because you can then focus on getting this working before moving onto the rest of the painting. If you do everything else before the focal element and then find you can't get it working to your satisfaction or need to rework parts of the composition, you've wasted the time you've already spent painting. (It's the reason many portrait and animal painters start with the eyes.)

Things to Consider When Looking at This Painting:
Warm and Cool Colors: To me the dominant warm feel to the colors in the painting add to the sense of emotion and conflict between the two figures. The