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Message
Posted
I think the scene is not very interesting to the viewer. There's no strong sunlight so the shadows aren't long enough to provide contrast. The range of colours is fairly narrow, beige, dull blue and green, all midtones more or less. The building is functional, rather than beautiful. What is it?
You could liven it up by painting a bright red car on the tarmac road, but I think the road is actually a narrow footpath so it wouldn't look right . A few people walking into the the building might help.
You could look more closely at the perspective. In the photo of the scene, the horizon line is the top of the wooden fence. In the painting the horizon line seems to be on the small projecting roofs above the doors. If you extend lines through the tops of the windows and the parapets on the roof, you'll find that they don't come to a single vanishing point on the horizon line. The prespective is out quite a bit. It's hard to draw perspective when the vanishing point is outside the picure panel. It's easier to get perspective lines right if the vanishing point is within the picture panel.
I'm not sure it's worth continuing with the painting. Try a street scene with strong perspective - all the horizontal lines converging to a vanishing point within the painting.
http://draw23.com/perspective
Edited
by keora
Posted
For what it's worth Pat, and meaning no disrespect, I agree with Keora. Even if you got it spot on from a perspective point of view, ( which is quite a bit out from the photograph) you'd be left with something that's basically just a copy of a somewhat dull building and scene. You need to put your own stamp on it or you may as well just take a photograph. If you need to paint that specific building, maybe painting it in a looser style with less detail would work?
Jim.
Posted
If it were mine I'd add a couple of figures to add a bit of interest and pretend the sun was lower on the left. This would enable you to paint some extended shadows coming in from the left and extending up the sides of the building which would help pull it all together. Also perhaps I would have painted the building further away as in the photo (ignoring the fence) to make it less dominant.
By the way I don't think the perspective is wrong apart from the fact that the whole painting seems to be leaning a tad to the right - if you swivel it a bit so the uprights are - er - upright, it looks fine.
Edited
by MichaelEdwards
Posted
You can see more of the building than we can because of that fence in the way, but I did wonder about the height of those doors; photos are quite deceiving, but they do seem to be exceptionally long.
Assuming you're not going to be put off by the appraisals so far received, and will proceed with the painting, the trouble with it at the moment is that it is a little flat - tonally, for example - it's a little austere as it stands; I would add the down-pipes, but it's going to be difficult to make this building look architecturally interesting. Shadow, contrast, even a stormy backdrop, could all help, but three quarters of the problem here is the subject - you can paint a boring man's portrait with all the skill at your or anyone else's command, but if he IS a boring-looking man with a face like a suet pudding, it's going to be the devil's own job to make him look like Mr Excitement.
I'm still not seeing as well as I'd like, because I've got to wait for a new prescription for glasses, but so far as I can see it's not so much the perspective that's out but the proportions, especially of the windows and doors - which isn't quite the same thing. You've had to change the perspective quite a bit, though, to get the more open view, and could it be that you've confused yourself a bit? Because the building is composed in a series of box-like blocks (I'd have yearned for a gable or turret!) the perspective is very obvious if it's even slightly out.
I can only suggest making the building more interesting - you're stuck with the architecture, so adjusting the lighting, any contrast you can find, cast cloud shadow, are all you've got to help: I can't see that changing the foliage is going to do it. I don't know the scene, of course, but the impression it's giving me is of a tightly regulated, orderly administrative block or perhaps school, with rigidly managed grounds - well, if that's what it is, that's what it is, and not everything needs to scream high drama; but it would be hard work to impart any distinctive character to a building that, basically, has none. If this was one of your commissions, I'm afraid you had your work more than cut out.
Posted
The diagonal shadow has helped a lot - it's made the building look more solid. Yes to the figures, but a bit smaller. Foliage .... well a bit bushier won't hurt provided you don't fall for the obvious trap (and would you? Of course not!) of trying to compensate for a rather functional building by exaggerating its surrounds, which never works I don't think.
But your adjusted version already looks a lot more interesting than the first one, so you look to be on track.
What was that Sylvia said about a cat..? Not sure that'd help at all: and there's something a bit, I don't know, un-German about a cat wandering across the grounds; I just have the feeling it wouldn't be allowed.. Two more points then I'll shush - I still think you should include the drain-pipes, and the perspective of the roof at the far end of the building, the left as you look at it, does seem not quite right to me - but it doesn't seem so wrong that I'd be confident of being able to put it right, and I'm sure you've done all the usual checks. Still - thought I'd better say it.
Posted
Agree about the figure (clearly, Syd and I are of one mind on the subject of white trainers with a blue suit), but I also miss the diagonal shadows you had in your second rendition - they gave the painting a bit of life, which that dour lump of featureless brick (is it brick?) needs. It looks in fact like concrete render, coloured, if that's the word, like a rich-tea biscuit - would it be taking licence too far to introduce some colour variety in those beige blocks?
I'm so glad you're painting this, rather than I should have been lumbered with it .... you've taken on a really hard job; not to much in re-creating the building as in trying to make it interesting.
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