Back to hot press. I more than sketched this beach scene in my new Mississippi 5 X 7 sketchbook. I’m not pleased with the values but am pleased with the composition. I’ll probably intensify the values at some point.
More ruins on 8 1/2 X 11 cold press. It’s hard to paint on Yupo in this humidity. This is an arsenic mine in England. Most of the mines have these cylindrical structures. I tried the unstructured technique on the bottom but the paper was too wet to get the effect I wanted. Go back to newbie’s first wet on wet study.
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Nice work! I like the window sketch, especially how the house is defined and all the surrounding greenery is watercolor-y. I would make the window dividers darker, because it’s always darker indoors…who let the dogs out? They are great and really interested in something off the page. I like that part of the composition, but not so much the pier across the top. It seems to cut off the top of the paper. Maybe if it was more at a diagonal? And in your last sketch, the foreground is gorgeously painted!
ReplyDeleteI really like the foreground branch, would've liked to see some ink in the leaves too. Where is the rest of the leftmost dog's body? I like the foreground of the mines also. I wonder if more of the splash could have touched those buildings. I mean they are arsenic aren't they?
ReplyDeleteThe dog’s body’s behind the woman in pink. I worked very hard to keep the splash off the structures.
DeleteWait--none of these are Yupo, are they? They all look like regular watercolor paper, even the last one. Anyway, I like these, especially the first and the last one. The line/wash balance works well in the first; I think I'd heighten the contrast between indoors and outdoors a bit, though. Not sure what the "unstructured technique" is, but I like the foreground on the arsenic mines. I'm not sure about the background on the beach scene, though. The top two elements are both flat and horizontal. I'm okay with the middle bit (echoing the line of the table as it does), but the pier is either too detailed or too straight or too something. It just doesn't seem to fit with the bottom 2/3s of the painting (which I like a lot).
ReplyDeleteI was looking for a sense of place with the first two. Essentials in the beach scene are the piers, the fire pits, the tables on the sidewalk, and the Walter Anderson wall. I think I have to make the diagonal wall darker and things might coalesce.
ReplyDeleteOkay, that makes sense and darkening the wall would help. Here's what bothers me. The pier is crisper and more detailed than the fire pit and even the wall, table and girl. It makes it feel closer than the other things, even though I know it's more distant.
DeleteNice feel to the out-the-window painting. It's the most relaxed of the 3. I agree, having the inside darker than the outside would help define those boundaries. The sketchbook painting seems like 2 different compositions - the top half and the bottom half that don't quite work together yet. And as you said, the values need adjusting. The high contrast of the dogs and her jeans jump out while everything else pales in comparison. It's surprising the last painting is on yupo, it has the textural look of watercolor paper. The foreground, as everyone has said, is exceptional. As well as the colors and composition. Maybe a little something something on that ruin on the right...
ReplyDelete“ More ruins on 8 1/2 X 11 cold press. ”
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