help with design and composition for the oil painting

[leo_piatigo]

Hi,

I am a beginner oil painter and have a photo of autumn forest that I would love to paint:

I would love for the two fork like trees with the orange yellow leaves on the right side of the photo and the path on the left side (to give a depth) to shine on the painting. I am struggling with too much information. The biggest problem what do I do with all this background foliage and distant trees. I am after practical advice of how to approach this design.

Thanks,

Leon

[Keith2]

It’s a challenging setting to paint, even for an experienced artist. Half close your eyes and there’s very little variation in tonal value.

There are a few areas of lighter colours where the light from the sun has managed to filter through the trees. You could make the colours brighter. Try editing the photo – perhaps increasing the contrast between light and dark would help. I think that the small tree with golden leaves in the foreground may prove difficult to paint and is not very interesting. I’d leave it out.

[John humber]

The photo is certainly very flat, due, as Keith says to the absence of direct light. Bumping the contrast is essential I think.

There’s a tangle of foliage and branches in the background, especially against the sky. I would suggest a more impressionistic approach to this; a pattern of grey-green and off white to suggest the foliage and you don’t have to paint every single branch.

I’d also suggest desaturating the background colours, especially that yellow-green which is tending to leap into the foreground.

Assuming that you are not looking for photo-realism I think the way forward is to look at the patterns of light and shade in the foliage.

PLEASE how do I make these dreadful yellow things go away?

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[Gav]

I’d start with tones only and no colour.  the colours are indeed distracting
Do a few sketches and work in black and white, if it works in black and white you then can open the doors to the complications of colour.

Theres are a few compositional ways to go. I would perhaps make the foreground trees darker (but be sure to put some colour in them still) and maybe make the spiky fern bigger. (you can also use the spiky shapes to direct eye towards the path and break up themuddly background). I might use some artistic licence and make it mistier too just a tad to simplify the background

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[ChadAAlvarado]

[Sonjaya]

I like the picture and have downloaded it for future reference, thanks. I have browsed image sites like alamy for forest that will trigger some emotion when I look at it. Not yet successful but this one is okay, only the color is not right. I would like to have it darker just like in a forest, and more chromatic.

It is not easy for beginner like me to paint correctly from imagination. Most painters even masters painted from imagination and the lights are all over the place but people doesn’t seem to bother with that, but I do. I prefer to learn the correct lights and geometry at the beginning stage of my landscape painting journey by copying photo references.

I think the golden tree at the right foreground (and the bushes) can become a nice focal point.

[Richard P]

As others have said, the values are all a bit flat. Here I increased the contrast, boosted the colours and cropped the picture to remove some of the white sky which is distracting, some of the ground and the area to the right to adjust the focus of the photo.

It might help.

[Author]

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