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Re: Blueberry Juniper
I *love* the marks you made in the tree and its leaves and bark. Very free and impressionistic. The small selection of colors is terrific. I immediately wished I had done that!
But not so much the middle and background....
Your bold clear marks are not there in the foreground rock. It needs clearer, more contrasty edges and a darker shadow (compare its shadow to that of the tree). The small detailed marks in the middle distance trees are too fussy, I think. Distance would make those objects run together, and they are not consistent with the lovely foreground, Using a larger brush, but the same colors would help a lot and keep the detail out. The drawing of the distant mountains seems kind of rushed, like an afterthought. The colors and values are fine, but they are just a row of uninteresting bumps. Ditto the drawing of the curving distant riverbank.
The main problem with the background is that the river swerves off downhill in the distance. Consider the pointy place where the blue of the river disappears around the curve as your horizon. Draw a horizontal line at that point to use as a guide and delete later. Then adjust the distant things to the right of that point upward so they agree with that horizon line -- mountains above the horizon, distant trees at or a little below (your vantage point is above the distant trees). The gradient of the sky from light to middle blue will go straight up from that horizon, not at a tilted-rightward angle like it is now. These fixes will get your background working better with your nice foreground.
You might also do something with the surface of the river to indicate the nearness of the right side and the distance to the left side. I believe the distant river would also be quite light from the sky it is reflecting. Since the foreground tree has a strong shadow from the sunlight (sun on the left side), it might be good to put a dark line along the distant riverbank, which will be in deep shade.
My first reaction to your tree was a delighted "Damn, a Maynard Dixon!" I think some adjustments elsewhere --- DONT TOUCH the tree! --- will bring the whole work up to the quality of the foreground.
Nice work.
-- Ciel
Last edited by Cieljaune : 05-18-2012 at 03:51 PM.
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