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River Sola in Poland - Work in Progress
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Message
Posted
Hello everyone, I'm a relatively new member but wanted to share my latest work in progress for your critique...
This is an oils landscape of the River Sola in south eastern Poland and I would like some advice about whether I should change the colour of the background hill into a greeny blue and how to get more light into the scene.
It is A4 size and was painted from a photo reference although I have visited here many times...
It is A4 size and was painted from a photo reference although I have visited here many times...
Posted
Looks like a nice part of Poland, Neil. I'm no expert but I suspect a touch of blue would make the hills recede a bit further, though I've always found values to be difficult to get right as distant hills can have darker patches. You may want to put more contrast in the foreground to gain some light around a focal point, as it looks mostly mid tones at the moment. Maybe even some highlights on the edges of the cloud to get an impression of where the light is coming from.
Posted
If I’m not mistaken, you’re painting this on watercolour paper! Nothing wrong with that but it wouldn’t be my first choice.
If you haven’t sealed the surface with a few coats of gesso, the oils in the paint will be absorbed into the paper, giving you a dull matte look, which is how it’s looking on my screen - and the colours are all a bit muddy looking!
Look at your tonal balance, and aerial perspective (darker foreground receding lighter towards the horizon). Without both of these, a painting will look flat! Colours are (generally) warmer the further away so ultramarine blue (red shade) is a useful colour.
My advice is to seal the paper if you haven’t done, and rework over the whole thing working in layers and gradually thickening the paint. I’ve got dozens of WIP features on this website, they may help you establish a basic ‘formula’ and be of some help.
And yes, as Ron has said, establish a light source and stick rigidly to it. Working from photographs is never great, use them purely for reference and don’t slavishly copy from them.
Edited
by Alan Bickley
Posted
Thanks so much for your helpful comments, here is the present version, still need to do some more on the foreground I feel and the bank of bushes on the right hand side....
[Edit] Forgot to mention that this was on Galleria acrylic canvas paper...not watercolour paper :-) ..I also toned the canvas beforehand with Burnt Umber...
Neil
Edited
by Neil Robinson
This post has been removed as it violates our forum rules and guidelines.
Posted
Spammer removed. I don't think I saw the original post at the time, but note that the artist painted in oil on Galleria acrylic paper - this is no better than watercolour paper would have been, unless the burnt umber toning were acrylic - and even then, a full priming with acrylic primer, or using oil painting paper, would have been better.
Posted
I’ll refer back to my original comments on this piece, it’s still dull, flat and lacking any tonal contrast!
This is the problem when you use acrylic using the watercolour technique, as in thin and watered down paint.
Good artists quality watercolour paint on a decent Arches or Fabriano paper, will, or should if used right, give you clean crisp and transparent washes - but you can’t get this result with acrylic on acrylic paper, so this muddy look is the result - particularly when you’ve used a dark tone wash to start with.
So, if you want to paint with acrylics, you’ll get better results if you use them as you would oil paints... a bit thicker and using white to mix in with some of your colours.
Edited
by Alan Bickley
Posted
Agreed - and glazing works well (if done right!). There are acrylic painters who use a watercolour technique, but the most successful of these that I've seen actually use acrylic inks rather than regular acrylic paint.
Incidentally, did we establish whether this was an oil on acrylic paper, or a thinly painted acrylic on acrylic paper? Either way: if oil, don't use acrylic paper; and to be honest I don't like it for acrylic, either - I've virtually never had a success with it, though makes vary. The problem with the painting is its lack of tonal contrast, especially in the foreground, where a bit of light and dark should have intruded. Still, I suppose it's a bit much to criticize it after all this time, when it was basically dug out of the archive to enable a spam post. And I've seen worse (come to that, I've done worse).
Edited
by Robert Jones, NAPA