DR4lyfe

Please let me know how I can improve paintings like this one. Thanks!


janetk:

What paint did you use?

DR4lyfe:

acrylic. as the morning wore on, I had to add a lot of glazing liquid because the sun was drying it very quickly!

janetk:

OK,
I've gone and looked at the other topics and have a little bit better idea of how to negotiate around the forum.
Was this painting a plein air painting? I ask since I've been doing quite a bit of that and then also working from photos. One suggestion is that perhaps your colors, especially the water's blue, might be a little intense. I've noticed since I've been plein air painting that my colors, especially the blues and greens, are not nearly as intense as I thought.
Also, you might want to incease the depth in your foreground greens.
I think you also asked on another topic about llimited color painting/mixing. Since I've been painting outside, I limit myself to the Kevin MacPherson colors - Alizarin Crimson, Ultra Blue, Cad Yellow Light/Lemon Yellow and Winsor Green plus white. I paint in water soluble oils and usually switch the green for Phthalo Green or even Sap Green. I find I'm using just the yellow and blue for most of my greens anyway.

DR4lyfe:

Thanks!

Yes, it was plein air. That was the problem I had--the water was ridiculously blue in the Caribbean, but it doesn't look real now that I'm back in NYC.

thanks on the foreground greens. they do need depth. I was using emerald green, mostly, mixed with hansa yellow light, a darker warmer yellow I can't remember, and on the other side of things, ultramarine blue and cobalt blue. those greens were bushes right in front of me, then a cliff, then the bay below.

it was mostly an excuse to tackle that fan palm on the left. I sketched it for two days before I got up the guts to paint it!

janetk:

I found the same thing when I was painting in Key West. The water went from dark purple to lime green and all the colors between. And yes, it looked artificial when I got back to Michigan. I did some plein air down there, but worked back in studio from photo references. Had to work to make transitions between the colors in the water. What I discovered is that there's a lot of subtlety in the intensity of those colors. I think that's what I was trying to say before.

paintergirl:

hi, i don't paint plein-air but just to look at the painting without knowing that you did, tho only thing that seems off is the color intensity. i love the colors in the foreground but all that water and space behind it seem way too intense to show distance or depth.

DR4lyfe:

Thanks, paintergirl.

I'm sure you are right--the colors are too intense. The colors SEEMED ridiculously intense at that location, but I'm sure that this was not the case, was not actually what I saw. How tricky to try to paint what you think is a colorful paradise!

Yours and janetk's comments suggest that I go back to my photos of the area, find the subtlety in the colors, and try to paint the scene again. Thanks for the critique!

paintergirl:

you're welcome! although i don't paint alot of lanscapes so i don't know about them......i just know a bit about painting in general. you might check out the hudson river painters, now those guys knew what they were doing! what i was taught by a great old-fart painter is that the air has a substance and the more air between you and what you're painting, the more muted the colors.

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