White Sands by Paul Farnes

Nice one Paul. Perhaps if I were to paint it I would probably want to open it out a little by extending it to the left and makeing it into a landscape as opposed to portrait - just looks a little bunched - having said that I would be quite happy to have painted it as it is.

You could always take up Michael's suggestion on another painting, of course. I like this as it is, though - in fact, I've been digitally cropping some of my own paintings, to see how they'd have worked out: and on the whole (this wasn't entirely welcome news!) I felt the cropping improved them.... The only other observation I have is that, but for the title, I would have taken the white area for snow rather than sand.... not sure that's any kind of problem: it's just something that occurred to me.

Appreciate the comment Michael. I lowered the horizon a little and I moved the grasses from directly behind the tree to show off the tree a little better. I added to the foreground a bit (although not overly happy having done that) and I cropped part of the tree on the right that leant the 'wrong' for what I wanted....but funnily enough, for all my tinkering, not once did it occur to me to paint it landscape! It does look a bit cramped and I can see a landscape painting could've given me quite a different result. Thanks.

I like it very much as it is Paul but I would be interested to see it in landscape format.

Thank you Robert. It did think most people would see this as snow, but the sand is as white as snow so not much I could do about it. It's a place called White Sands National Monument in New Mexico and it's a huge white white gypsum desert / dunefield. It was the unusual white dunes that attracted me in the first place. At least next time I want to paint snow all I have to do is paint white sand and let everyone think it's snow. Sorted.

Thanks Fiona. Landscape format would definitely give it a different feel