Field of Flowers

[gale Prosser Shuba]

Hi everyone,

This is the first time I have been on this site. I am just getting into acrylics. This is one of my first pieces that I posted in acrylics. Thought I would post it here for your feedback. I think the painting looks better then the photo as the computer picks up all the little white flecks.
Well anyway here it is.

[mcassatt]

Hi Gale,
I see you've used many "artistic concepts". One of the most important ones is value. You may want to think in terms of that and revaluate.(use more shades of greenery) Also, another thing I noticed is everything looks squeezed into the frame. You may want to for ie. show only partial road, what I mean, letting it widen in the f/g so part of it is off the pic. frame. Something else, the bush in the b/g is smack in the middle and the large trees on either side of the painting are the same size maybe change one, they look like bookends. Just a few thoughts.
I like the brightness of the flowers and the use of perspective.

[viking57]

Hi Gale,
Grace has brought up some very good points to consider here in making this a better painting. Composition is at least half the work of creating a good solid painting. Making compositional errors early on is ok since we are usually just trying to get used to laying the paint down and making something beautiful. Once we get the hang of that it is time to concentrate on composition. Hang in there, it all happens and really is something we deal with as long as we paint.
Ron

[gale Prosser Shuba]

Thank you for your helpful comments. I have not had any formal training and keep trying by looking at the work of others, how to books etc. My love is color pencil but I really want to paint also as it makes me loosen up.
I will take your advise and keep trying. Please check for some of my future work and see if I improve.

[oldradagast]

One other concept to keep in mind is when painting a road, path, or river that goes off into the distance, make sure it narrows along the way and avoid painting it too high up on the canvas. A good rule of thumb is to keep the obvious part of the path or river in the lower 1/3 of the canvas. This isn't a hard rule, but it avoids creating situations where the path seems to be going up vs. fading away into the distance.

Anyway, you're off to a good start, and the folks in this forum are eager to help.

[marionh]

This is an good painting in many ways. You've got a good sense of recession in the sunflowers and tree lines.

You've received lots of good advice and here are a couple of more points:
the roundness of the hill is distracting and it is set centrally. Think abstract - don't have the bottom of the hill at the same level eg flatten the top somewhat and take one side of outside of the picture frame. Make the hill lighter and bluer or purple to give a sense of distance.

It seems such a lot of 'rules' - but many of them will become more natural the more you do.

How large is this, and what surface are you painting on?