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Monday, January 25, 2010

Birch Landscape~Color Sketches


This was done w/o any prior pencil sketch and some negative painting. The trees on the right are lined up like ducks in a shooting gallery but that's an easy fix.


This one brought in that cold winter 'feel' but it's rather dull. I need to work out something better for the foreground, too.

Even though I haven't been posting much lately I have been working. Landscapes aren't a strong point for me and this one poses extra challenges. The customer would like certain colors included in the finished painting and it also has to tie into the companion painting, Berries & Birch #1. The obvious choice would be to use those colors, a grey blue and burnt sienna, to make them mesh. So far I've done 6 color sketches and these are the latest two, done quickly and 'sketchy'. I'm not entirely satisfied with either but I wanted to get them up on the computer to see how they look. Sometimes seeing an idea on screen reveals things I can improve on and tweak to get the desired result or in the worst case...to just chuck the whole idea and start again.

5 comments:

Bãpp said...

very nice work Billie,
jan :)

Billie Crain said...

Thank you, Jan.:)

Diana said...

I like both of these paintings very much, but I think that if the painting you want to create now is going to sit next to the Birch/Berries #1, they should almost match...look at these japensese print pairs... http://www.tias.com/9080/PictPage/3923724651.html. You see how 1 has more red but they are in the same perspective.

Maybe you can use less berries and add a bird? All the same crinkled background and colorway. Or the bird could introduce a new color. I think you have something really special with #1, and to see 2 on the wall together would be something.

Just a thought...I'm no art expert, for sure.

Billie Crain said...

Thanks for the input, Diana.:) I emailed these two images to my customer and she liked the second one. Too much orange in the first for her taste. Btw, thanks for that link. Beautiful diptych! I don't believe these two paintings will hang side-by-side so they won't have to be matchy, matchy. I just want them to compliment each other.

Diana said...

Sorry, didn't realize. Great! your customer will love it.