'A Good Year for the Queen' 8x10 pastel ©Karen Margulis sold |
Here is the painting that I decided to make over:
The original painting was a winter 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:
Yes, I love the summer version with your signature queen ann's lace!
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!
What a successful re-do!!!
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