61st Painting: Preparing for Plein Air

Please see the next post, below. This is a dummy post, so that I can post pictures in the next post (below).

Hello All,

I am getting ready for Plein Air painting. So I did this painting to get a feel for things before I march out into the world. This painting was done from a photograph (not mine) and I deleted a lot of details and just captured the essence. I did this using only one brush (size 6 Flat) and cleaned it with water when necessary before dipping into another paint.

As always, all constructive feedback are welcome (Please don't hold back).

Size: 5" x 7"
Time: 1 hour.

Hope you don't mind, but I played with your painting a bit. Although there is some distance in the center, the sky and foreground feel flat. I used some of the techniques I've learned in the recent landscape class I took.

1. Darkening the top of the sky makes the distant sky recede.
2. Darkening the lower edge of the foreground brings it forward.
3. The front mountain needs to be a slightly darker value than the more distant one.
4. The land masses also need to have decreasing values as they go back.

I darkened the sky, foreground and near mountain by glazing lightly over the existing colors with a blue picked from the lake. The distant land mass has a lighter value of the same color applied to it. i didn't do anything with the water, but there probably should have a little more gradation of values from front to back. You may also want to lighten the sky more just above the mountains so it feels like it is behind the mountains. Right now they are both the same value.

Hope that helps.

Thank you for taking the time to give me your detailed feedback Judy... . It is greatly appreciated... . All this is very valuable.

You are very welcome. Just holler if I step over the line. I just felt that you are probably new at landscape painting, and I see all the same mistakes I made when I started.

I ended up taking landscape courses with Johannes on WetCanvas using WSO's, acrylics and watercolors about 2 years ago and then this years I took one using digital oils. In all cases, the message was the same...gradation of values to give depth. They were all live webinars and were great. Johannes has his available for download. Here's the link if you want to take a look. They were very reasonably priced.

http://improvemypaintings.com/RecordedClasses.html/

Judy

Not at all... Please always provide your feedback, without holding back . However, I would like to get two perspective if possible. (1) What does it look like the moment you see it and (2) then after you see it for a while what do you find. The first gives me what an average viewer would see and the second gives me what an artist is seeing.

Once again, I did not draw a line so you are not stepping over anything. I want to grow and the only way to do it is by getting honest feedback from you all...

Thanks

Faisal

Faisal, my eye is first drawn to the dark tree area on far right, looks briefly at the yellow strips, and goes to the far left trees. I find the yellow is puzzling, I keep looking at it to figure out the shape.
Nice values for the trees. Good comments from Judy, very helpful to us all...

Thanks Alan,... I see what you mean about the yellow... This is a very good feedback.

Thanks

Faisal

Hi Faisal,

My first reaction was that the sky and mountains felt flat. They all felt like they were connected and at the same distance away from me. The foreground also felt flat, but at a closer distance than the mountains and sky. I didn't feel like I could walk into the painting because there was a close wall and a far wall. I hope that explains it for you.

Yes! Judy, I totally understand. Thanks again...