Wednesday, January 19, 2011

01_16_11 Topanga Mountains

I went back digitally to solve some of the value problems with the painting. I worked the values to a better hierarchy and tightened up that middleground hill and totally repainted the land touching the water. Usually, my strokes are fairly confident, but you can see below that the edges look uncertain and a little rushed, especially in the tree. The painting had started pretty well, but parts were still unresolved by the time I chose to quit. Unfortunately, I ran out of time as the sun became drastically different. One thing that a friend pointed out was that the ocean, while graphic, had waves moving diagonally and I wish I'd indicated it in my original painting. I added some movement digitally which helps keep that area a little more interest.
Latest from my Sunday Painting Posse Exploits, a little location in the Topanga Mountains somewhere in Santa Monica. This went fairly well for such dynamic lighting, so many greens (I'm more used to less lush colors and more earthy tones). As you can see from the bw image, my value grouping was a incomplete, although in the color image I pretty much nailed the light wrapping around the path and illuminating that grass. It really was that delicious looking.

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