Waiting At Alexandria

[artelahe]

MY IMAGE(S):



GENERAL INFORMATION:
Title: Waiting At Alexandria
Year Created:
Medium: Pastel
Surface: Paper
Dimension: 6x10in
Allow digital alterations?: Yes!

MY COMMENTS:
The work is a combination of alcohol wash underpainting, soft pastels and pastel pencil on 'black' Art Spectrum colourfix paper.
This is not a subject I would ordinarily undertake. The scene intrigued me from the train. I took a photo but discovered later I'd captured both the platform and reflections of the interior of the train making it hard to make out the left most fifth of the image. I could not make this area work in the painting, and it has been cropped from the image. I am aware this puts a strain on some composition rules (sticking something in the middle, for instance).



MY QUESTIONS FOR THE GROUP:
I very much like the figures, the way the light wraps around them (do these work for you)? Should the water fountain be subtler? Does anyone have input on how to pull a straight line solely with soft pastel without it looking as if it was knife edged? I struggled with this and feel as if part of my painting is too tight when it either has to all be tight or all be loose. Or are the two combined working?

[La_]

i think a tight/loose combo is fine as long as it's not too obvious
can't help with pastel techniques
coi seems to be the dark foreground fellow and i like that it is [the green thing tries but doesn't compete too much]
comp Could have been better with more space on the right, like this ...

la

[artelahe]

Thank you for the feedback, La. I had hoped this would go to Structured Critiques, and luckily you have provided one. Center of interest is the dark foreground figure, so "Whew!" that worked. I would have to make up anything to add to the right, but it could be done if I consider this a step to a new piece.

[La_]

yeah, the link to structure is broken, you'll have to ask a mod to move it there for you.
of comp crit, merely a thought for future pieces, a little breathing space goes a long way to help focus in on the coi
it's still a valid piece as you've done it

la

[artelahe]

Reworked based on La's feedback: Thanks

[La_]

nice, how fortunate that you had more paper off to the right, that's rare. what size it is now?

la

[artelahe]

I had the prior dimensions wrong. It is now about 9x9in.

I don't always have extra paper, but it is my practice as a pastelist to use area that might be considered margin to color test and value test before applying it to the actual painting. In this case I had been working on a large sheet of black art spectrum color fix paper that currently has two other small paintings on it. I had turned the entire thing to provide room for this image. I still had 8in to the right to play with. Unfortunately, that is not always been the case. There is one painting I very much loved that needed several inches added to the too, but I had been painting close to the top of the paper and had nowhere to go. At some point, because I really like that painting (of my yellow house at night in the winter with snow piled around it and warm light coming from inside), at some point I'm going to have to paint it again in the correct proportions so that the house looks very much smaller ane the frigid night appearing much larger.

Thank you again, La

Aly!

[tidal]

The first one does draw attention to the shadowy figure in left door frame the second one not so.More the second one draws eyes attention to the light comeing from the exit as it streams in eye travels from right to centre not to shadowy figure (if you were wanting eye to go more toward shadowy figure I would say first compotsition does that more.As an idea you could have gone to take the second Image where you have made it wider (for example if it were a film on a tv and you could re set aspect ration ) and then with that wider image (I would have put it widescreen or 16.9 ) cut some of the top and bottom if image ie to bring the edge of paper end of drawing to top of the door frame where the shadowy figure is and cut some of the bottom upto near where ladys feet are, this is if you wanted to achieve it by changing the composition only .I say this because the eye is drawn to the excellent tonal shading you have done in the ceiling or roof of building near entrance and that lovely light coming in (as it is very bright compared to rest the eye will naturaly focus on this ) if you want focus to shift to the shadowy figure and you do not want to change values of brightness etc you can do so by re arranging the composition.If you wanted the eye more to come to centre of picture or to the left you could take the second piece you did and change the tonal values slightly by having a sharper contrast on those figures or area (in comparison to the rest) and you could create more detail on those areas (and subdue the rest where yo don't want eye to go)by using toned down colors and/or softer edges edges .I personaly don't think you need to put any particular thing in the middle of it or have a central subject matter or change the composition as you can create interest and move the eye in other ways all which as can already be seen in your work that you have the capability to do.Your work is excellent by the way