What's wrong with this picture

As a child, I remember that picture game where you had to identify all the things wrong with the image. The car only had 3 wheels, the tree didn't go all the way to the ground, the bike the child was riding had only the left portion of the handle bars.

That is what I do with my paintings. Looking at this piece, I see a number of things "wrong."

1.) The stick on the right side of the painting sweeping along the contour of the rock. So distracting. It may have been there in the reference photo, but it is just not working.

2.) The lioness appears washed out. Maybe if I darken her and add some detail.

3.) The lion's head appears too orange for the rest of the piece. I want to paint all of him before I make any changes, so I will consider what needs to be done then. (note: I do like the coloring of the shaded tail and will work from those colors.)

4.) The lion's mane needs more definition.

Adding the Lioness

I painted the lioness soft and loose, not wanting to distract from the lion. She is in the sunlit background and should have less detail than the branches. The grasses have been added and help divide the lion's rock from the rock she is walking across.

Editing

Editing is like a puzzle. Take out too much detail and the painting lacks depth. Paint in too much and the piece can look busy but not effective. So, how do I decide how many sticks and branches. From earlier posts, you can see I have a rough structure for the main framework of the branches. As for the smaller branches and sticks.....

...for me, much of it is trial and error. I paint a stick in and it doesn't look right so I paint it out. Sometimes I will add one and it is almost right but not in the right spot or it angles left when it should angle right. This means a lot of stepping back from the painting, looking at it from different angles and even taking a moment outside. When I come back to the painting, I try to look at it with fresh eyes.

Back to the Lion

Yes, it is back to the lion, lying.

Today I am working on the rocks. Lots of blobs of light, medium, and dark which don't make much sense until I get in the branches and dappled light on him. Once those sections are painted, I will see what light/shadow changes need to be made.

At this point, I want to leave the rocks a gray tone (cool) to offset the lion (warm tone.) The close up dark boulder in the lower right will have light colored grasses in front of it which will brighten that corner.

Hmm. I am noticing a large upside down V below the two front paws of the lion. Think that will be coming out. It is interesting for me to see the piece so small after working on it and its 4 foot length.

News!

This appears to be my summer for acceptances. First Birds in Art at the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, then the 50th Society of Animal Artist Annual Exhibition at the San Diego Natural History Museum. (More on these two shows closer to their openings in September.)

Today I heard from Artists for Conservation. Both of my entries were accepted for the 2010 The Art of Conservation Show.

Leopard!

Polar Plunge

Continuing the lion painting

This is my least favorite stage of a painting. The blocks of color can sometimes just look like blobs. If I get all fussy in the background now, it could distract from the details in the foreground. I have to wait until more detailed areas are painted to see what (if any) adjustments need to be made to the background.

The Value Study

I find this raw sienna - burnt sienna turpentine wash stage important. It will catch some things I may miss during the composition/drafting stage of the painting. For instance, I noticed that the vertical rock wall behind the lion felt too much like a wall and too little like a rock. I made a mental note to curve it at the top to mimic the rock bolder feel I have in the rest of the painting. Also, the curving rock just behind the lion's back was too matchy-matchy with the line of his spine. I moved the rock up and will keep an eye on how it effects the overall composition.

.

Another change was the lion's mane. In the drawing, I didn't notice the mane seemed a little flat between his eyes. Once I had the wash on, it was obvious to me it needed to be higher. I threw on some darker wash to extend it. The wash also brought to my attention the section to the right of the lioness's back legs. Right now it seems very bright and distracts from the lion. While I paint, I'll want to think about how to resolve this with the planned grasses.

.

Generally a turpentine wash will take me 1 - 1.5 hours for a painting. This took me 4 hours and it revealed some details and problem areas. It also gives me a sense of the balance of the painting. Does an area need to be darker? Is the painting weighted on one side? What draws my attention and is that the area I intended for the main focus?