I finished this painting this morning. I made the figure a little more prominent by pushing colour and value contrast a little more and then worked mainly on the foreground.
The Way Down, Skellig Michael
(16" x 20" Oil on Canvas)
This is the first of yours that didn't grab me pretty much from the beginning and I've been trying to analyse why that might be. i like the composition idea and your treatment of the sea. the two things that I think have me worried are the figures and the shadow side of the right hand rock. The two figures leaning don't seem to at the correct angle to lean on top edge of rock the way you have shadowed the rock. The shadow on the right hand rock doesn't seem to be quite deep enough and the same is true of the associated cast shadow. I'm sure you will have convincing reasons for what you have done and I'm further sure that I will learn from how you have made your choices.
Hi Mick. The figures are leaning on the rock in the photo, but it's also more angled toward them and lower. I didn't like how it sort of blocked the opening towards the sea on the way down, so I changed it - the figure now are not mean to leaning on the rock. I'm not sure what you mean about the shadow not being "deep" enough (do you mean in a drawing sense or colour/value?). If it's about the drawing/shape, the cast shadow is slightly narrower than that cast by the left hand rock, because they are at different angles to the sun which is coming from the top right hand corner of the painting (this is different from the photo which is much more from the right - I changed it because I wanted the warmest part of the water to be in the top right corner of the painting). If it's about value, if anything I think the values of the shadow sides of both rocks may be too dark, but I pushed it for visual impact.
It might be better to continue this thread on Wetcanvas, Mick. It would be interesting to hear what others have to say too - most of my "followers" seem to comment there rather than on the blog for whatever reason.
2 comments:
This is the first of yours that didn't grab me pretty much from the beginning and I've been trying to analyse why that might be. i like the composition idea and your treatment of the sea. the two things that I think have me worried are the figures and the shadow side of the right hand rock. The two figures leaning don't seem to at the correct angle to lean on top edge of rock the way you have shadowed the rock. The shadow on the right hand rock doesn't seem to be quite deep enough and the same is true of the associated cast shadow. I'm sure you will have convincing reasons for what you have done and I'm further sure that I will learn from how you have made your choices.
Hi Mick. The figures are leaning on the rock in the photo, but it's also more angled toward them and lower. I didn't like how it sort of blocked the opening towards the sea on the way down, so I changed it - the figure now are not mean to leaning on the rock. I'm not sure what you mean about the shadow not being "deep" enough (do you mean in a drawing sense or colour/value?). If it's about the drawing/shape, the cast shadow is slightly narrower than that cast by the left hand rock, because they are at different angles to the sun which is coming from the top right hand corner of the painting (this is different from the photo which is much more from the right - I changed it because I wanted the warmest part of the water to be in the top right corner of the painting). If it's about value, if anything I think the values of the shadow sides of both rocks may be too dark, but I pushed it for visual impact.
It might be better to continue this thread on Wetcanvas, Mick. It would be interesting to hear what others have to say too - most of my "followers" seem to comment there rather than on the blog for whatever reason.
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