Composition, Color, & Contrast

"Bobber Stare Down" - (5/6)

Author: Larry Seiler, Contributing Editor

Two more things I want to call attention to, and then we are finished with this painting. Light reveals detail while shadows or "absence of light" hides detail. Yet, too much light blinds the eye from seeing detail. To enhance the effect of the brightness of the sun knowing the limitations of pigment, I purposefully avoided painting detail around the frontal cheek and mouth area.

I instead depend upon the viewer's mind's eye to complete any detail necessary, and hope the washing of detail "infers" the presence of bright bright sunlight. I think it worked quite well. Lastly, one simply cannot copy an image and hope to be a good painter. A painting must have a sense of underlying unity. A harmony that becomes a common denominator and pulls all the parts together. Each part of the picture must convince the viewer that it was exposed to the same atmospheric conditions and light. Thus...color has to be repeated throughout the picture as cleverly and subtle as necessary. Look close at the background trees, and water's reflection and see I snuck hints of some reds and orange pigment that is found predominating the life vest.

Look closely at the ballcap and see underlying hints and presence of reds found in the face, and blue found in the sky.

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