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Wednesday, March 11, 2015

A Painting Makeover: Winter turns into Summer!


'A Good Year for the Queen'             8x10            pastel            ©Karen Margulis
sold
It's playtime in my studio today! I have a big to-do list but nothing pressing at the moment so it was time to paint for fun. It is a time to experiment and make discoveries. I will share all of the fun in upcoming posts. One of the projects today was a painting makeover. I love taking a painting that just didn't click and having fun with it.

Here is the painting that I decided to make over:

The original painting was a winter landscape 
It was an 8x10 demo I did for a private class. The student wanted to paint a snow scene. The painting served it's purpose to explain some snow techniques but I wasn't excited about it. I am finished with snow and ready for spring and summer!  Why not use the 'bones' of this painting and turn it into a summer landscape?

the photo that inspired the revised painting
Last summer was kind to Queen Anne's Lace. It was everywhere and it was thick! I had a photo that would work for my new landscape. 
  • To start the transformation I brushed off as much snow as I could. I then sprayed the painting with some workable fixative to seal the ghost image.
  • I kept the major shapes of the trees and developed them a bit more. I added the distant blue mountain shape.
  • Next I put in some nice rich darks that would form the pathway under the grasses.
  • Time for the grass. I begin with a cooler and lighter green in the distance. I used a variety of greens in the mid and foreground to represent the variety of grasses.
  • Next came the flowers. I wanted the Queen Annes Lace to drift lazily towards the trees. I varied the size of the flowers to create this effect....big to small.
  • Some of the flowers were in shadows so they are blue.
  • I choose a few flowers to highlight and make more important.





a close up showing the textured surface
Painting tips: This painting is on a piece of Multimedia Artboard that I prepped with clear gesso leaving a nice random texture. It was originally toned orange. 

3 comments:

Bobbe's Community Food said...

Yes, I love the summer version with your signature queen ann's lace!

robertsloan2art said...

Wow! Great lesson and I had to smile - I like the summer painting a lot more than the snow. It has better depth and a joyous blaze of color. The recession of the flowers makes it sing and also the flowers in shadow.

The wintr painting migt have improved with deep darks in the little creek and grayed blues for ice patches. Open water in snow sometimes comes up strikingly dark, the shape was fine but reminded me of something I'd seen where creeks reflecting dark trees made a deep slash through snow areas. Snow scene could have been redone as a snow scene but I like your summer scene better! Gorgeous greens and fabulous flowers!

a power said...

What a successful re-do!!!