The nice thing about painting is if you really work at it you will improve your painting ability every year. The even better thing about that is you can always go back over your earlier work and improve them with your new and improved painting abilities. I don't do that with all of my work but certain pieces are worth the improvements. I think my grasses are 100% better now and this beach scene had grasses in the foreground that made me cringe each time I looked at them. I decided it was time to go back in and fix that. I also added some additional time to the foreground sand, adding shadowed areas and tiny dots of paint to portray the bits of wood, charcoal etc that you see on the beach. I like the improvements made to this painting and find myself "cringeless" now when looking at it.
Here is the original painting. note the short, stubby and lifeless grasses in the foreground. Also see the lack of interest in the sand there too.
Here is the same painting with the improved grasses and shadowed sand areas. I think this really adds more interest and a better feel of a beach scene.
...a detail of the grasses....
2 comments:
Ron hi
That change makes a real difference. I might be so bold as to suggest that its your increasing confidence that is allowing you to be more painterly, and the result increases confidence further.
I like your grass greens here as well. How did you mix them ?
Pete
Hi Pete,
You're absolutely right about the confidence here. When things look better in your work you gain that confidence to push your work even more. Each painting brings about better and better things.
As for the greens they were just my usual variations off of Ultramarine Blue, Cadmium Yellow Pale, Alizarin Crimson and tiny bits of Titanium White or Yellow Ochre. Mid green is about 50/50 Ublue and Cad Yel. For a dark green I use less yellow and add aliz crim. For lights it is more yellow no crimson...ochre and white mixed with any of these basic combinations make for nice variations of greens.
Back in college I used to "buy" greens but now I make them...more fun.
Thanks for checking out the painting Pete.
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