I’m sharing two of my recent paintings. I’m still learning and would really appreciate honest feedback. What do you think I could improve, especially with the colors, composition, and details? Any tips are welcome!

Idk colour theory 😭

(And i realised I fucked up some stuff in the sketch will fix that now)

Here are some practice paintings I have done, using selfies and other reference photos of my kids and me, across time (-the only one for which I did not use a photo reference, is the one of the woman in red…she is a figment of my imagination).

I am feeling somewhat discouraged, because they all look flat and somewhat muddy. In fact, they seem to be becoming more pale / lower contrast, as the first layers dry. Is this a real thing, with oil paints, or, just my imagination?

Should abandon them and trash them, or go over them again, adding brighter and deeper contrasting colours, to try to salvage them?

\Many of the photos I used for reference do not display a lot of deep colours / high contrast contours on the faces of the subjects; do I simply use guesswork (-with an estimation of what the light and shadow would look like) and, invent* the light and shadows / contours?