Turkey River Valley

[Jim Updegraff]

MY IMAGE(S):





GENERAL INFORMATION:
Title: Turkey River Valley
Year Created: 2004
Medium: Oil
Surface: Canvas
Dimension: 40
Allow digital alterations?: Yes!

MY COMMENTS:
This was posted in the Landscapes Forum several weeks ago. A number of people made suggestions which have been more or less followed -- grey out the distance, warm up the middle ground, detail the forground. I think it's done.
Image One is the whole thing. Image Two is a detail at the center of the piece.



MY QUESTIONS FOR THE GROUP:
Am I done? If not what does this thing need to be finished?

[Cybergator]

I wouldn't do another thing to this....I really like the way it has come out...really a nice piece...

[henrik]

...and why do you think so Cybergator?

[MarkMark]

I think you could say it is done.. My comment would be and this is being awfully picky that the backround could have been 'blued out' even more to create even greater distance and perhaps a feeling that we werent viewing this with maximum depth of field. Otherwise it seems to me to nicely handled given you chose a fairly complicated scene to portray convincingly. I do think this is convincing

[Jim Updegraff]

On “bluing out” the background, let me say in my own defense that the atmosphere around here in the early morning on a crisp autumn day is like crystal. Things are bright and crisp, like looking through the wrong end of a pair of field glasses. But you may well be right, MarkMark, a little more grey toward the horizon could help. I’ll have to worry about that for a while.

I have always admired the English (British?) landscapers who do broad expansive views of field an moor and fell and dell chopped up by dry stone walls and hedges. I’m sure I was thinking about those paintings the first time I stopped on the river bluff and saw the Turkey River Valley spread out in front of me.

[LarrySeiler]

bluing out color in the distance is a great depth device, but neutralizing color and lightening values is as well. Put together, they work great...but part of painting too finds artists sensing a mission to being true to represent their world.

Rather than change some areas to an ideal...artists in the past opted to move to live and work in another region where lighting was ideal. Good paintings for painting's sake...good, good paintings to inform, also good. Some artists do not move, but instead they move our hearts and perceptions...

Thus..in a real way...we not only have a nice painting here now, we also get an idea what it would be like moving to your neck of the woods.

I'd say based on things shared in the landscape forum you've diligently worked hard and brought about good working changes! Kudos on your humility to receive opinions. When we think we've arrived, we have stopped growing!

peace these holidays.

Larry

[Yokovich]

I am interested in the size of this --is it 40 inches wide?
Without question I agree the painting is "done". I particularily enjoy the crisp detail of the buildings and the strong light. Half of the painting is sky and half is earth--when I crop the painting so that it is predominately earth I find it a more interesting composition. I understand, however, that if your objective is to replicate these surroundings you feel obligated to show the source of all your strong light.

[Jim Updegraff]

My fault on filling out the Quick Link form – the painting is 40 inches by 30 inches on pre-stretched cotton canvas – I’ve busted too many stretchers doing my own stretching. There is something very frustrating about putting together a fair size canvas and then coming back the next evening to find that the gesso has made the fabric shrink enough to snap one of the stretchers. When you discount the time and labor I’m not sure there is much difference between the cost of buying primed and stretched canvas and the cost of doing it your self. I’ll do my own if I need a heaver weight of canvas, but for ordinary easel stuff the commercial canvas is OK.

I’m not sure I understand the comment about light source. If you could expand on you comment, celestia, I would be grateful.

[Yokovich]

Jim, Generally when a painting is cut in half, with the horizon line in the center, it is considered a "bland" composition. In many paintings you find that the artist pushes one or the other, sky or earth, to predominate for a "better" composition. I cropped your landscape so that it was mostly land and just a strip of blue for the sky. I often use photoshop to illustrate a point. I am trying to be more judicious in it's use, I really only want to use it if it makes an improvement. After I cropped your painting I found it lost it's expansive look, which is key to it's success. The strong light and limitless clear scenery is there, courtesy of the blue sky.