Old Pier

[Frances Obie]

Hello All,

I have been working on a marine theme, playing with the effect of light and shadow on the imagination. This one started from a photo of an old broken down pier.Pastel and acrylic, 24"x24". Reactions, C&Cs welcome.

Thanks for looking.

[Poco-Artist]

I have a reaction ........
Very impressive work.

[Frances Obie]

Thanks, Poco-Artist.

[Katie Black]

Hi Frances, I like your colours and the strong light in this, I did find it a little confusing at first glance, my two cents would be to maybe continue with the pier wall to the edge of the canvas as it appears to stop abruptly, what do you think?

[Frances Obie]

Thanks Katie.
I may have allowed the painting to become too complex, hence confusion. I'm not sure about extending the pier as that may give the appearance of cutting the composition in half. Perhaps it needs larger simpler forms. Am I right?

[Sean T.]

You really capture some good emotion with this work. I really, really love the bottom two thirds (from the pier on down). I wish the top third wasn't so clean/neat. Can you muss it up a bit?

[Frances Obie]

Interesting suggestion. Yes, I can do that. Might help to pull the whole thing together. Thank you.

[Blinkblink]

Nice fresh colors and especially the yellows. I don't see it as confusing, more like compelling, as it lends itself to study and interpretation. Key elements for a more sophisticated work.

[davefriend]

The first time I saw this I just loved it. Great colors, shapes, movement and overall unity. Good job and absolutely beautiful Frances!

The blues and yellows are refreshing and the reflective illusions are quite hypnotic. I am not distracted by the abstract qualities to the work as it seems to make it more mysterious and make me look at it more.

[Katie Black]

Hi Frances, Taking another look at your painting today I think what struck me is that the very top of the painting is clearly abstract with many blocks of strong shapes, lines, and colour, whilst the middle section leans more towards realism, and then the bottom section is painted in a much looser more flowing style. I like this painting but feel it needs pulling together more, I love the pastel you have used in this piece a lot.

[Frances Obie]

Thanks for the comments Fred and Dave.

Today I worked on this a little more by loosening up the sky and making some adjustments to the pier.

Katie, I appreciate how you feel. Mixing realism with abstraction seems to be a matter of personal preference. To try to create unity, I repeated shapes and colors from the pier in the background and foreground and I used yellows and oranges from the sky on the pier.

[Katie Black]

Looks great!

[PiKoonMo]

the ladder like form really disrupts the visual flow for me, as does the white vertical line at the end of the pier. otherwise i really love it.

[PiKoonMo]

looking at your first image and second image, i realized how much i was drawn to the top two-thirds of the first. very vibrant. the second image tends to seem a little "muddy".

[PiKoonMo]

to expand upon my concern with the ladder form, it is slanted to the left of the image,where it picks up the on the bank. the bank being a circular mass in this instance circles out of the picture at the bottom left corner, and so does the eye , imo. if the ladder form was reversed it would balance this motion while leading the eye to the bottom right-third of the painting.