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hello kara, this is a beautiful painting of santa barbara and what i love about this painting is the loose technique that you used. I think what you can improve on to make the statement of the painting clearer is by playing with edge design: soft, hard, lost edges.
Great job! I like it!
Since it is a critique, the only thing I’d suggest is to possibly make a minor value adjustment. I realize that it might also just be how jpgs look on different different monitors, but to me it appears that your lightest value “masses” are on the right and left edges; they definitely pull my eye.
It’s not a whole value step (ref: a 9-value scale following Munsell with black = 1 to white = 9) , and may just be a quarter to a half value, but it’s definitely there. I know they’re (the masses) not white in the original but they’re large enough to notice, and with the dark-light roof line contrast on the right and the brighter spot on the left, I can’t stop looking.
I might knock them down a little (again, 1/4 -1/2 value or whatever it is in reality). I used your image to slightly darken the values on the edges in photoshop – without changing anything else but you could increase the value elsewhere if you wanted (and I might), but it’s all up to you. Thanks for posting the original.
Thank you both for your input. I rally appreciate you taking the time to help me out 💕
This is a gorgeous painting, Kara–I especially love the color (rich without being overwhelming) and the painterly brushwork! You make me want to paint this lovely spot too.
My main critique would be the lack of a clear focal point. This is made more difficult by the “stripey” nature of the scene: a stripe of water, a stripe of building, a stripe of foothills, a stripe of hills/mountains, and a stripe of sky. This kind of subject makes dynamic composition more difficult, though the palms help with that.
Right now, I feel that the cluster of palms on center right, the peaked roof on center left, and the bright spot in the hills at center top are all competing to be the primary focal point. I would choose one–probably the peaked roof, but the palms would be ok, too–and play it up. Let’s say you chose the roof. I would increase the value contrast there and add some sharper edges, some additional details, probably a streak of hotter red on the roof there and/or some other more intense color(s) such as a strong blue in the shadow. Basically, that focal point should, if possible, have the greatest value contrast, the most saturated color, and the highest level of detail–though not so much as to overwhelm the rest of the painting or stand out in a jarring manner. I’ll guess you more or less understand this already, but got carried away on the scene by the other points of interest. Happens to me, too, I’ll freely admit! Anyway, I think I’d also add a bit of atmospheric perspective to the hills/mountain, slightly lightening them, to keep them from competing as much with the foreground and push them back in space a bit. It might have looked exactly as you painted it, so it’s a personal decision whether to stick with that or not, but I believe it would make for a more effective image.
Hope you find this helpful! 🙂
(By the way, some changes made at home to an alla prima painting done on location can spoil its natural feel–changing the hills might be counterproductive now, though I would recommend it if you were painting a similar scene again. It’s tricky to figure out which alterations are worth risking at home, and which are only wise to do while still working plein air.)
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