"Hide Behind Me"

6x6", oil on canvas board


I was charmed by the little bud hiding inside the vase, hence the title. OK, how's the painting? The focal point has some pop. The painting is pretty loose. I'm doing a few in a row that are OK. Modified yay. But this one still doesn't sing. Why? Ah! I remember something in Alla Prima by Richard Schmid... Here it is, page 14 (which is a really good page), in a section called "When Things Go Wrong." It contains good stuff, some of which is this:

The next question is what exactly am I doing wrong? For the answer to that, the process of elimination must continue. I already know that there are only TWO possible errors in working from life. (Remember that.) To put it neatly, they are:

1. Painting something that is not there in a subject.

2. Not painting something essential that is there.

I also know that those two errors can only occur within one or more of the four visible elements: Color, Values, Drawing, or Edges (or some combination of those).

AND NOWHERE ELSE. 

Color, values, drawing, or edges. I guess they make up the composition. I'm not going to change the drawing, and I don't think it's edges. But, in recent posts I've written about at things that are the same, since similarity creates boredom. If you think of  paintings as having three values, maybe I have the same amount of medium as I have dark. If I play with it in Photoshop, what happens? [Runs off to do so.]

I think this is better. Still not completely happy with the flower, but the background is now darker and cooler. It no longer tries to pull focus from the flower, which pops more. And there's more mystery in the edges on the vase. I might have to do this to the original painting.


Onwards!