Home Forums Explore Subjects Landscapes Glacier Bay #9

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  • #481003
    Dorrart
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        Here’s the 9th in the series. 24×12, Golden Acrylics on cradled gessoed panel. This one I am not certain is done. C&C welcome. Here’s my dilemma: I like it as a painting, but the thing that has me wondering is whether or not it captures the feel of size it needs to. These photos were taken from what amounts to the 6th story of a building and I think the fact that the glacier is probably 40 feet tall may be lost on this one. Opinions please. Thanks!

        - David

        "Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working." --Picasso

        #915361

        David, on first viewing I was struck by an overall impression of the vastness of the scene and the other worldly beauty of this whole series.

        If your reference was shot from sea level, I guess that the glacier might hide the distant range. The glaciers would likely appear more massive but the scene might lose that sense of vastness and be less interesting. To get both ???

        Gary

        "Painting is a verb"

        #915358
        Skyenorth
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            Hi David, I just looked glaciers up on google and this looks like the same location! You could increase the size of the glacier to make it have more impact. Lovely painting!

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            #915363
            Ohiohawk97
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                Beautiful piece David! Love the way you painted the ice and rock walls. A difficult subject that you handled wonderfully….

                Wes

                #915362
                Aussiesrus
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                    Lovely harmony throughout & I love those patterns in the design structure. Nice.
                    Increasing the size of the glacier could be a good suggestion & perhaps include a few small waterbirds/penguins to give scale to the subject. Just a thought. Well Painted !

                    Michael.

                    michaelcartwrightart.com.au
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                    #915372
                    Reddyman
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                        Hi David
                        Another wonderful piece in your series. Once again I love the panoramic format for scenes like this that suit the horizontal structure. I don’t mind the perspective and can tell based on the expanse of the scene that it is from a distance.
                        Wonderful colour gradations throughout and that glacier structure is tricky to paint but you pulled it off beautifully.
                        Nicely done.
                        John

                        #915367
                        Dorrart
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                            Trikist, thanks so much my friend. “on first viewing I was struck by an overall impression of the vastness of the scene and the other worldly beauty…” This is my dilemma. I think it succeeds as is, but I may have brought it up (painted it to the current level of detail) too fast. Now I don’t want to change anything. Thanks for looking and commenting. I always appreciate your comments!

                            Skyenorth, Yes! Well at least I did a recognizable likeness :smug: “You could increase the size of the glacier to make it have more impact…” Thank you for commenting and for the suggestion. That could work and would be a crop rather than a change of point of view (I’ve done that on a few in the series), but not an option for me at this stage on this one, but your comment helped me decide to work some more on it. I think I have a path forward that should do what I want. Thanks again, I really do appreciate the comment and the time spent to look up glaciers and spot this one!

                            Ohiohawk97, thanks! “Love the way you painted the…rock walls” That’s my dilemma, I like the way they came out, but I think i need to change them. I thank you for the comment!

                            Aussiesrus1, thanks so much for the nice comments! “perhaps include a few small waterbirds/penguins to give scale to the subject” This is a good suggestion. I’ve seen photos of the glaciers with people in front of them in small boats and thought what is that tiny thing in front of the glacier? Oh my God that’s a person! It really would give it scale, but it’s not my style, especially in this series. My grandfather was my first art teacher. He was academy trained and one thing he always said to me was to put birds in my landscapes to add life, movement and scale. My argument with him was that adding birds especially in flight locks the painting into a precise moment in time. I want timeless. Especially in these. I am fighting a desire to create dramatic visual elements that might give an impression of fleeting change, like dramatic lighting effects, dramatic color, or even dramatic movement, such as calving or water spurting from a hole in the glacier (we didn’t see this in person, but I’ve seen several photos of this) I’m avoiding that for a more concrete sense of slowness of change. The warmth and coolness of my palette to not define a season or lock in a temperature as opposed to the sharply lit dramatic cool sharp lighting of the photo for example.

                            What I’ve come to believe it needs you can see in the photo skyenorth posted. The hills to the right of the photo in my painting look like they are covered with large textured boulders, while in fact it’s a mountain with rolls of rock face made up of many many huge boulders that give it texture. If I can capture that, I think I can fix the scale issue.

                            Thanks so much. Getting comments from this forum of talented artists always helps me formulate my process and has really helped me set my goals for my work.

                            - David

                            "Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working." --Picasso

                            #915368
                            Dorrart
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                                John, thanks so much for your comments. They must have come in while I was writing the book I just posted. Ha! I appreciate your insights and observations. Thanks again!

                                - David

                                "Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working." --Picasso

                                #915366
                                Bizzibee
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                                    It is another beauty David. I love the sky and water. Even looking at the photo Caroline posted, it is hard to get a sense of the vastness of the glacier, I think. I was wondering about a couple of alterations. In the photo, the glacier is a good two thirds the size of the height of left and right rock formations, so bigger would be good, I think. Also if you extend it all the way across to the left, so that that rock formation does not appear to dwarf if. On the right side the glacier seems just to be part of that rock structure, whereas in reality it is obviously forward of it. The large boulder effect on the right rocks I agree should be reduced and smaller marks would help, I think. Also just a thought, but if you made more of the background mountains oddly, would it help with the scale of the glacier, if you made it bigger? Would the eye say, wow that glacier is as big as those mountains, especially if you scale back those left and right? Just some random thought which may or may not help. I hope you don’t mind me mentioning them and please be assured I think it is lovely as is. It’s just if you aren’t happy with it, how you feel it should look it will keep bugging you.

                                    'One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star': Friedrich Nietzsche

                                    #915359
                                    Dcam
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                                        #915369
                                        Dorrart
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                                            It is another beauty David. I love the sky and water. Even looking at the photo Caroline posted, it is hard to get a sense of the vastness of the glacier, I think. I was wondering about a couple of alterations. In the photo, the glacier is a good two thirds the size of the height of left and right rock formations, so bigger would be good, I think. Also if you extend it all the way across to the left, so that that rock formation does not appear to dwarf if. On the right side the glacier seems just to be part of that rock structure, whereas in reality it is obviously forward of it. The large boulder effect on the right rocks I agree should be reduced and smaller marks would help, I think. Also just a thought, but if you made more of the background mountains oddly, would it help with the scale of the glacier, if you made it bigger? Would the eye say, wow that glacier is as big as those mountains, especially if you scale back those left and right? Just some random thought which may or may not help. I hope you don’t mind me mentioning them and please be assured I think it is lovely as is. It’s just if you aren’t happy with it, how you feel it should look it will keep bugging you.

                                            No worries Bizzibee! Thanks for the comments and suggestions. I don’t think it need anything drastic to get where I want it, but as soon as I finish another painting I’m working on, I think I will try my thought of adjusting the the right hand side mountain texture. I’ve looked at it against the others in my series and it stands up pretty well and I’m pretty happy with the work so far. Not too far off what I think it needs. Thanks again for the extensive comment! After I finish the series I am planning some stand alone paintings, possibly using some different cropping, different colors, going for the drama I’ve been avoiding in this series. Some of the suggestions I’ve been getting in this thread will come in handy. Thanks again!

                                            Dcam, your comments are always appreciated. I’ve found I really like that panoramic format and noticed that that is the current format setting of my cell phone camera, so if I can do a good composition in the camera view it makes my job easier to paint it. Glad you like it. Thanks again!

                                            - David

                                            "Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working." --Picasso

                                            #915357
                                            Jon
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                                                Beautiful panoramic feel in this.
                                                I like it.

                                                #915364

                                                The sharp jagged ice is the most striking thing about this to me in contrast to the rocks. I would love to see more snow and ice paintings from you. Maybe from the ground looking up rather than looking down at it? Just a thought.

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                                                #915360
                                                123harry
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                                                    A very striking image.
                                                    Getting the scale is tricky. There is really no indication of the actual sizes in the painting. Even in the photo it is ambiguous. I think a combination of some more intricate detail in the middle distance hills and some atmospheric perspective in the day mountains might help,

                                                    C&C always welcome.
                                                    Instagram harry.hamill

                                                    #915370
                                                    Dorrart
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                                                        Jon, thanks so much. I am really liking working in the panoramic format. Glad it works for you!

                                                        Yvonne Keogh, thank you for your comments!

                                                        “I would love to see more snow and ice paintings from you.”

                                                        I am currently working on a 36″ x 24″ snow scene. Largest I’ve done for a while. It feels good to work at that scale again. I will post the outcome when it is done. Thanks again!

                                                        123harry, thanks for your suggestions and comments!

                                                        There is really no indication of the actual sizes in the painting.

                                                        Yes, this is a factor I’ve been dealing with in these. Most landscapes have trees or some other object to give a sense of scale, but this area is is just so void of trees, houses, or buildings of any kind that scale is hard to establish. I actually removed some elements of Arial perspective, only because it made the tops of the mountains where I had it seem too disconnected, but maybe a bit of cloud across some of those mid ground mountains…hmm. I might try that. I am planning on working with the details a bit. Thanks again!

                                                        - David

                                                        "Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working." --Picasso

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