Category: Peeking Behind the Easel

Solving A Painting That Is Not Working, Part 2

 I suggested several steps yesterday to take when you can't figure out why a painting isn't working. For this painting, even turning it upside down wasn't getting me to what the problem was.  So luckily for me, my family was here. Family – especially teens and young 20's will tell you the truth – even when you didn't ask them.   : )

My family was curious how I could  fix the imbalance after they noticed the problem.  Since they were interested I got them involved in step 1 – brainstorm how to fix it.   With my chalk – step 2 – I sketched out on the painted canvas our ideas. [ Chalk is great  – it doesn't disturb the painting and wipes right off. ]    We tried adding more sunflowers, more details on the pumpkins, pumpkin leaves and vines from the stems, until someone blurted out turning it into a jack- 0-lantern.  Whoa!….. that was not at all what I had been thinking. 

But you know what?  It worked. It balanced the painting and added a light note to the painting to match the color palette I had chosen.  Here's the chalked idea:

And here's the final painting after also adding a final tint on the pumpkins and photographing in natural light:

I had envisioned an Indian summer day for this painting, picking a light palette of colors rather than the usual darker colors used in pumpkin paintings. Adding a face to the pumpkin kept a lightness in the painting in addition to balancing out a composition error.  In a roundabout way, that's where the painting ended up – a warm, Indian summer day in early October.

What do you think?

 

 

Solving A Painting That Is Not Working

It happens to all of us. You're happily working on a painting and as you think you are finished, you can see something is not right. Sometimes it's obvious like the colors are clashing, or the proportions are wrong.  Other times……you just can't see where the problem is but you know it's there.  What to do?  Here's some suggestions I use:

– move the painting to another room for fresh perspective

– turn it upside down.  You'd be amazed at how this simple trick helps your eye see the painting differently

 – put it away for a few days and look at it with fresh eyes.

 – show it to another artist  – they can usually see where the problem lies.

– ask your family members – they never hold back the truth and they look at it differently since they are not artists

Here is my current painting that is having issues:

Can you see what isn't working?

My family noticed right away that the painting was lopsided.  Non artist words but right on target.  If you mentally divide the painting in 1/2 – the right half has sunflowers and pumpkins, the left half – it's one pumpkin. A composition boo boo that I missed way back in the sketching out of the painting.

How to fix this?  

Step one – brainstorm how to balance the painting, 

Step two – get a piece of everyday chalk and start sketching out right on the painting what changes might work.

Stay tuned tomorrow to see what we came up with!