29 November 2013

WIP The Smell of Lavender - Evolution o f a Provence Landscape

I am working on a larger landscape painting of the lavender fields and I have come to a bit of a halt because it is not quite working. This is where I am at at the moment
The smell of Lavender work in progress
54x46x1.8cm oil on box canvas
The olive trees gave me some bother so I wiped them and repainted them a couple of time, I am still not sure if I am happy with them but I will leave them at the moment until I resolve some of my other issues.

Perspective change
Changing the olive trees changed the perspective - at first I thought the far house was too small, but then hubby said it was the 'cabine' that needed to be larger. I decided to import the photo into photoshop and play a little before putting more paint on the canvas. Sometimes taking a break from the painting and working things out away from it can provide a fresh perspective,

Using Photoshop
I cutout the cabanne and moved it closer and enlarged it
A little bit of improvement, but the foreground wasn't working for me. What about a tree in the foreground?

More Photoshop manipulation
I cut out a tree from one of my lavender field photos and tried that
Not bad - obviously the colour of the tree would have to change, but it interfered too much with the olives.

Next I cutout the red scrub on the foreground ridge and played with that

Mmmm - not sure about that, I will probably do something in between the two.

I am also wondering if now that I have moved the cabine the conifers appear very heavy and blocky. I may decide to scrub them out.

I'll post my update tomorrow, but would love to hear your ideas in the meanwhile.

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3 comments:

  1. CAROL HOPPER -- A PAINTER'S JOURNAL29 November 2013 at 15:27

    A lot of this is working. The colors are rich and strong. Two things I would look at if this were my painting: the perspective of the front left building needs tweaking; the shapes of the lavender fields seem somehow off…or repetitive. I live the trees, the mountains, and everything else. I look forward to seeing where this goes.

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  2. Artbymarion29 November 2013 at 15:43

    Thanks Carol for taking the time to comment. I agree with what you say. I am woking on the front building to make it 'sit' better. The fact that the lavender fields meet in the centre of the picture does not help and I think I was ignoring that LOL. It also gives me a straight line across the painting so I shall have to work on both of those as well.

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  3. Sea Dean - Paint a Masterpiece2 December 2013 at 01:18

    What an interesting post. We do all go through it don't we? I dropped by to invite you to my GIFTS AND DECORATIONS ART PARTY. This is similar to the 30 paintings in 30 days, but Less pressure. More fun! I've set the links to rotate everyone to the top, you can post just one painting or up to 24 leading up the the holidays and it has a holiday theme. The registration is here and I will send out links each day if you FOLLOW MY BLOG on the left. I do hope to see some of your lovely work at the party. http://paintamasterpiece.blogspot.ca/2013/11/gifts-and-decorations-art-party-begins.html

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I am always pleased receive comments and to discuss my paintings and techniques.

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