Post Your Dailies here...120 Paintings

[rozzi]

Great work everyone. It's great to see all the different stuff coming through. Sorry for not commenting individually.
Here is my No. 3 - gouache - 5 x 7 on black colorfix. Trying to loosen up and get more painterly.
Ros

[Vida Evenson]

John what a lovely painting! I love the orange flowers especially (I am partial to orange) but I think they get lost on the red cloth. Maybe if it were toned down a bit it wouldn't compete with the focal areas as much?

[Vida Evenson]

Ross,

I've never painted with gouache but may try one day (once I get a handle on oils). The tomato colors are lovely and rich and I love the way you handled the table top/cloth. My only suggestion would be to soften the edges where the tomato meets the table. My eye seems to want to go there too much when I prefer to look at the tops of the tomatoes. Something is pulling me back down and I can only think it's the sharp edges there.

I love what's happening here on this thread!

Vida

[JaneChilton]

Rossi those tomatoes are wonderful!

[JaneChilton]

Hi Larry, sorry to bother you, but could you please give me some kind of critique for improvement on my picture (page 5).

Thanks a lot, Jane

[LarrySeiler]

Originally Posted by JTMB

# 8 - Still Life with Grapes and Flowers

Hey John...good effort. Nice contrasts going on..

a couple thoughts...



if you study the classic masters...such as Rembrandt (Baroque period)...to help an object or portrait feel as possessing the space and in the atmosphere which it sat..they painted a bit of a foil in the background that could be seen behind, and allows the object to come forward more toward the viewer.

I softened/darkened the area of the bottom where the bottle sits...and I suspect on the backside of that bottle might be a hint of reds from the table, and if not...would be good to add anyway, as it gives clue to its roundness going back, and also sitting in an atmosphere. You have to look close to see I put the hint of red in there.

Softened too just a bit of the bottle's shadow as it gets further from the bottle...

Such may or may not have been the case...but it comes as I suspect..

good stuff going on!!!

[Journeyman]

Glad this thread is so active with some wonderful inspiring work being posted, to many to comment on individually but I am enjoying them all.

The empty bottle!

　
Apart from Fridays (which is life drawing) I’ve managed some sort of painting each day, must be careful or this will become a habit Dave

[LarrySeiler]

Originally Posted by Vida Evenson

Vida

Keep coming back to that lemon, Vida...wow...very convincing and nice!

A lemon with some slices...or an orange and a few slices..would make an apPEALING subject in itself!!!

[LarrySeiler]

Originally Posted by DLT

Again just playing with light and shadow.

Similar to what I mentioned to John...we have the master's works to get ideas, and I like what you have here but an approach or method familiar to the masters came to mind...



they would deepen or darken the background against the side of the subject (portrait, still life) to contrast against the light striking the object, and lighten the background behind the darker side of the object.

Note I bounce a bit of reflected light into the underside of the orange, left side. I also obscured/smeared the edge a bit on the lit up side against its darker background. Also..I extended the light source from the right to indicate the edge of the surface the orange is sitting upon, behind and to the left of the orange. That creates compare and contrast, an overlapping effect and brings the orange forward, and sets drama for the darker shaded side of the orange to work against.

All serve to anchor the object in what feels real time space and atmosphere...

You can somewhat set this up for this effect by how you position lights, and knowing to look for it will begin to see it.

[LarrySeiler]

Originally Posted by carol_lee

only suggestion which would lead to greater asymmetry...is perhaps darken the farthest flower on the right, as if in shadow behind the others, calling less attention to itself. There...but lacking in prominence. And the lower flower to the left, might drop it down to extend lower to the left.

[JTMB]

Larry - Thanks so much for taking the time to comment on so many paintings here...your enthusiasm for and dedication to teaching is clear. Your 'regular' school students are very fortunate to have you for a teacher.

Thanks also to everyone else posting their efforts here. I'm looking at each one and reading Larry's and others' critiques - great learning. It will be great seeing the progress that everyone who is doing this project will make over the next months.

[LarrySeiler]

Originally Posted by rozzi

Ros...

nice subject...and love gouache..

though difficult to work with for some...it is infinitely reworkable..and a bit of water on tip of small round, you can work edges to blur or obscure.

Also...IMO..the darker harsh contrasting edge of the table calls much too much attention to itself, and nothing wrong with a cropped view..



...notice I touched and blurred some of the rounded edges, which gives more sense of the form's going back in space as round...and a touch of variation in the background color (upper right) is just enough to added some weight of asymmetry...

You have such a natural strong component in complementary color with oranges, red oranges and blue...plus light versus dark value, that I believe treatment of edges become more critical...

[LarrySeiler]

won't always have time...but try as I may, thanks John...

[LarrySeiler]

Originally Posted by Lowe

what I call "elliptical perspective" ...take a cup, jar, bottle...study it. Raise it up to eye level, slowly lower it and note...that the more a round form is eye level, the flatter its elliptical form. As the subject lowers, the eyes are taking in more an overhead view, and the elliptical shape broadens more to the rounder shape...

In your cup here...you have a much rounded opening at the top as compared to the base it is sitting on...

These things are important because to the uneducated eye of the viewer, something will not seem quite right. They won't likely put a finger on it...but such creates a psychological tension that translates poorly.

This is a case where increasing understanding about something then advances your powers of observing. I'm sure...every bottle, cup you paint from here on will have this aspect covered and mastered!!!

[LarrySeiler]

Originally Posted by Journeyman

The empty bottle!

　

Last critique today...maybe the weekend...busy working on another webinar session...and plans to get out into the national forests this afternoon and evening...
As said...can't promise I'll have time to do this on-going...but as I may, and I apologize if I miss folks. I hope others will pick up and speak up to help one another as well..



Man-made structures can be brutal...that is, they are unforgiving because they have often a flawlessness that nature does not share. It requires more careful drafting...but a problem there too for the painterly painter is we don't aim to draw but to deal with masses. Still...its a half a dozen one thing or another. I think my painterliness today, and seeing shapes, painting groups of values and masses owes much to the many years of dues I paid to drawing and careful drafting.

I like very much the color, the values you have used to create transparency. The highlights just right to translate to glass. Well done.

What to improve observation on though...is if a plum line is dropped down the middle of the bottle, you see how more bottle pushes out the left side than the right. More vertically straight along the left than right, and the smaller neck/throat of the bottle requires symmetry of equal shapes both sides of the center line.

Ahhh...dang, like it or not...we become at times a slave to symmetry!!

Keep it up...nice stuff going on!!!