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Spring exercise on Brombe Reservoir during lockdown
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Message
Posted
Thanks.
Size: height 36 cm, width 46.5 cm.
With a predominantly blue painting I used the complementary colour of orange for the buoy around which the dinghies are racing. Then I added the red on the sails. The question is, does the red distract from the orange, and should it be changed to green? Or does the red make the painting more lively?
Compositionally I think the eye follows the sweep of the dinghies around the buoy and then moves to the distant dinghies, before finishing on the distant bank. The buoy is in the golden third position.
Should there be some greying of the distant sails to enhance the colour perspective? Should the sail of the overlapped dinghy in the foreground be greyed to increase its recession?
Anything else?
Thanks for your offers of suggestions.
Posted
Well it’s quite a lively and fresh painting!
The ultramarine blue of the water is probably a bit too intense, but I can live with that.
Yes, some of your suggestions are fine, the orange buoy looks red on my iMac screen, and I actually hadn’t particularly realised what it was.
Look at the colours of the sails, at the moment they’re all white! Depending on their position to the light source and orientation in the water, there would be some variation here.
The sails of the dinghies nearer to the land look taller and a different shape, I’m assuming that they are a different class!
So, nothing too drastic needed, Robert will probably make a few suggestions also.
Posted
Yes - I think I'd tone down some of the sails, which are very white indeed, with a touch of raw sienna for some of the nearer ones, and a violet-leaning blue for the farther ones. I would also sharpen some of them up a bit - the whitest of sails do tend to stand out quite strongly against a deep blue sea, the edges of some of yours are a bit fuzzy.
That IS a very blue blue - and an unusual intensity to be seen off British shores: our landscapes and seascapes tend to be greyer - but I've also seen the sea a vibrant blue, just very rarely - when the sun is at its zenith, and the sky cloudless. Little bits of variation in colour, in the reds and darks on the sails, would also help to give the impression of dancing light from the water.
Some of your sailors are a bit on the big side, and a touch blobby: cutting into them might help - the one on the left, leaning backwards, looks at least as big as the hull of his boat - figures seen at a distance are tiny by comparison with the shapes around them.
As Alan says, a lively painting - I just think it needs a bit of tightening up in places.
