Okay my friends this is one of the pieces I'm working on. I did this under-painting today. Any initial worries here? I realize the mountains in the background are not worked much. Any suggestions there? The sky was just a hazy overcast from all the reference photos this day. I'll be working on the underpainting for the other piece tomorrow a little so I'll post that once there's more to discuss.
6 comments:
composition is nice. good shapes.
it needs a sky to nail down the spatial and scale relationships. don't be limited by your reference, it's only reference. put into your painting what the photo lacks.
I'd try to get some lost and found edges in there, and simplify some areas that aren't as important. the right side there is a lot going on, I'd chose a focal point - and an eye path, and simplify everything else. your largest shapes and highest level of contrast aren't your focal point.
Mark says he doesn't understand what's happening in the foreground, and why there is a hard edge. if it's a cast shadow it would most likely be a fuzzy edge there.
Geoff I'll work livening up the sky for sure. More tonal variations w/ some sky holes where blue peeks through the grey.
Darci I'm struggling to see what at this time will be the focal point but I definitely will play up the edges more. Composition wise I felt and maybe I'm wrong that the triangular overall mass with the chutes and pipes ground it and truck pushing back into the bottom right kind of led you back into the piece.
Mark, I didn't focus as much on softening that edge in the foreground but it's where snow meets pavement and I'll soften that up. In the big darker bottom shape you have wet pavement that's darker and a couple dry spots in it that are significantly lighter. There will be a couple of soft reflections in there also.
I'll definitely shoot to get softer edges and some lost edges. There are already some things I simplified quite a bit here and other that I'll try to simplify more.
Thanks for the input I do appreciate it.
Composition wise there are 2 aspects to consider, 1) Negative vs positive space, gestalt. This is what I was talking about and I think what you're mostly talking about. It's about balance, dynamic or symmetric. How does the illusion of the image sit on the physical surface. When you squint your eyes and stand back is there an internal harmony with the image. I think you do. 2) Leading the eye. This is what I think Darci's talking about, and what you're responding too. I agree that the triangular lines help lead the eye up out of the ground plane, giving you motion and size, without being strong enough to lead your eye out of the frame. So I agree that it's a good solution. But like Darci says, if you don't know what the focal point is, neither with the viewer. They'll just kind of look around without knowing what to look at and leave without 'getting it.'
I would suggest that the triangular supports around the tank in the foreground already lend themselves to framing that object. Also, it's in the foreground and screams 'look at me.' Once you darken up the front groundplane as you mentioned, you'll be leading the viewer straight up into it. I would suggest making the tank the obvious focal point so that the eye stops there, and that the background structure is only there as context, not as detail leading the eye out of the tank. Give it some sweet high contrast reflections and some nice specular hits to offset it from the background full of old dull metal. Some exaggerated HDRI style surfacing in the metal would work really nice with the sky you have in mind as well.
Geoff thanks for the input. I think i even understand your specular and hdri ideas after a little wiki search. :)
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