Tag: Composition

Line & Color, vii

The Final Pictures

The final decision was to attempt to darken the middle flower and create more light / dark contrast. Don’t think it works. The other choice was to move from more warm at the base of the painting to cooler on top. Washes of yellows and yellowy-pinks went in, from bottom to top. Purple-blues were overlaid the very top flower.

To a degree, I think this warm-to-cool saves the painting, but the lost contrast in the middle flower weakens it as a whole. The contrasts between the red and green of the leaves helps, but doesn’t save it. The B&W below shows this quite clearly.

Line & Color, vi

PINKS – Too Much?

Second layering of pinks added, cool and warm, and more of the original underlying light pink. The photo below shows where the painting is currently – and I am not happy at all! The big middle flower disappears into the background of leaves – it has lost its sparkle. The reason is pretty simple: the flower now is the same value as the leaves. Rats!

I was looking at this picture last night, and it took me awhile to realize what had happened. Here is another way to test the values (shades of grey) in a picture – take a digital photograph in black and white, or turn your color image into a B&W image in a software program. Problem is immediately apparent, as you can see below.

Before Second Layer of Pink

After Second Layer of Pink

The lesson here is twofold. First, layering more of one color, or other colors, can create this problem. Second is to think ahead from now on. Experiment with colors, take a picture, look. Better yet, analyze the picture and then see if my camera bears out my theory!

In painting, value is the hardest for me to “get.” B&W photos help me see this better. Last night, I put the picture on the door to look at it. It seemed dull and uninteresting. I looked, and looked, and then looking at my earlier photos, I realized what had happened.

The next question is – to darken up the central flower, or to lighten it with white? Darken the leaves? Hmmmm.