I decided to try to fix "badly deformed onions". How is this version? Still loose, but less chimp-like, hmm?
In the photo the onions now look much better defined than the garlic, which doesn't seem to belong to the same painting. The paint is still wet and it might look different when it is dry. If it is still a problem I can always work up the garlic a little more. This could turn into a neverending painting.
3 comments:
Oaky, it's 'lets rip this piece of work to bits' time. Well, lets see what's wrong and suggest ways of making it work.
1. the onions and garlic are very separate from each other, but there's no relation to the two. So, you need a bridge. I suggest adding another piece if garlic slightly to the right of and behind the front two so that it overlaps with the onions. This'll tie the two elements together.
2. The garlic is blue, and the shadow of the onions are blue, so they suggest they're made of the same stuff, which they aren't. So, change the colour of the shadows. I suggest a cool dark colour which will recede, and make the onions come forward, maybe a dark purple, but a cool one.
The composition overall is leading your eye down and right, out of the picture. If you turned the onion on the far right, so that the 'grain' of the skin ran top right to bottom left, pointing to about 2'oclock (this is difficult to explain - I hope you're getting this) then it'll stop the eye from sliding off the page to the right. Maybe if the new pieve of garlic was stood with it's stem at about the same angle, from 2 o'clock to 7o'clock, then that diagonal would help to keep the eye within the picture too.
Thing I love: the scribble-graphic roots of the garlic, the honest shadows on the onions. There's legs on this still-life.
I was just catching up on my blog reading and suddenly realised that "Beansprouts" has gone. Have you started another gardening blog anywhere? Thanks
Steph - yep, good suggestions. I'm working on a big canvas right now but there are always times when I am waiting for a layer to dry or something. I am sure I will return to "Badly Deformed Onions" and keep tweaking it.
Hi Lily. I've been suffering from depression for the last year and been unable to do lots of the things I used to love doing, like gardening, blogging, getting dressed in the morning....
Slowly I'm getting my life back on track and Beansprouts will resume, I promise you. Right now I'm putting what energy I have into painting and art. It is giving me the strength, peace and courage to resume other strands of my life. Bit by bit I am pulling myself up by my bootstraps.
Nice to see you anyway Lily. It really means a lot that someone cared enough to track me down.
Post a Comment