MEET CAROLYN
Carolyn has been painting off and on for several years in watercolor. She has a good command of the medium when she is working from a photo or other 2 dimensional references. Her goals are to learn more “rules” of painting, composition and design, and to be more creative; relying less on her reference material.
She copied this painting from a picture. It’s a good representation but I don’t see Carolyn’s own hand or her heart. Structurally the painting can improve by enlarging the pueblo since it is the center of interest (COI). It would be more interesting if the horizon line was either higher or lower, thus making the divisions of space unequal. Establishing a dominance of color temperature is important in all paintings and this one is half warm colors and half cool colors.
I asked Carolyn to try another version relying only on the previous painting, and thinking about those changes. Here she used a high horizon line and chose a cool dominance which allowed the warmth of the pueblo to stand out. She created the cactus plants from her imagination and I think they fit the scene much better than the previous line of trees. If she is reaching for realism then the perspective of the building needs to be worked on, but I enjoy the off-kilter house; it gives it a personality. The edges of the ground shadow shape need to be squared off so that they read as shadows.
Carolyn lowered the horizon line on this unfinished version and put some mountains in the distant background. We see again where her style is much more relaxed and heading toward “painterly”. She picked a dominance of warm colors with the mountains being the only cool shape. She could apply a cobalt blue wash over those to cool them a bit more. That would push them back even further into the distance. On both of these versions, the ground planes are equal in value from foreground to background. Usually the foreground is darker than the distance ground. But not always, so that’s a rule you can break, but one should be a darker value than the other.
This recent painting shows a big jump in originality, composition, design and technique. Way to go Carolyn! The purposeful small size of the house gives the scene a lonely, out-in-the-middle-of-no-where feel. She’s established a great edgy mood with the dark sky. I sense a storm or scary weather is soon to happen. Her center of interest is placed nicely in a “sweet spot” and the contrast between the cool sky and warm ground adds to the wonderful tension. Notice she added a little bit of warm reds into the cool sky which ties the painting together. The foreground might benefit from being darkened somewhat, otherwise, Carolyn, this is a very nice painting.
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