Our Home and Studio- what’s not working here?
Tagged: Uncategorized
Category: Uncategorized
This is the point in almost every painting where I could just turn it to the wall and walk away. The initial buzz is over and I start to struggle. Something is not right with the buildings in this one but I can’t figure out what. Terry Miura, who taught a painting workshop here a couple of years ago said, in effect, ” Figure out what’s wrong and then fix it, don’t just muck around hoping it will get better.” So I work on the hills and sky a bit more and leave the buildings until the answer comes.
Every time I stop painting I scape up all the mixed colors and keep the blend in a pile on the pallet. It’s a mix of all the colors I am using and so makes a great neutral that will naturally harmonize with the current color scheme.
I do like this glass pallet! It actually makes me want to clean up at the end of each session.
The next day I avoid the buildings further by starting to do something with the trees. I put in the white birches and suddenly see that the house porch looks like it is floating above the studio building and the ground where the trees grow. What the ???? It was tempting to think the problem would just get covered up by the trees, but with bare branches I couldn’t count on that. Nor would I have heeded Terry’s advice!
It took Dennis’ fresh look to see the problem is simple perspective: See how C and D would converge if extended to the left before E or A met them? and how line A is straight across and above the roof line of the building on the left?
With proper perspective all the lines would meet at a “vanishing point” on the horizon, and you can see below how I corrected the roof lines so they work. The roof of the house porch now meets the roof line of the studio so it no longer “floats”. If I had paid better attention to the grid I made when I started, I would not have had this problem. Once again, good planning always pays off.
With this issue resolved I could go ahead with the painting:
…and at this point I will leave this painting for now (after I put a sold sign on it) and return to it with a fresh eye after I attend to some other projects. I’ll let you know when it’s “finished”.
Hope my learning process aids your understanding! Thanks for your comments and suggestions.
Cool! I like how the sky is picking up more of the color, too! Joy