Taking a photo and reducing it to black and white is a helpful tool that I use when I'm close to finishing a painting. It helps me to give a last check on the tonal composition. I wanted to make sure that the horse and rider were tonally integrated enough with the rest of the painting. A few colour adjustment glazes later and I was ready to call this painting done.
Comparing the size of the waves on the right to the size of the horse
and rider has helped set the sense of scale of the beach. I set the
direction of the cloud to help emphasize the depth of field and lead in
to the main event of the sun silhouetting the figures.
As you can see from this wip quite a lot of time can pass between initial inspiration and concept to completion of a painting. Sometimes this is due to time constraints and the natural order of things as painting ideas pile up waiting to be explored. Often it's because, for me, time needs to pass before the idea becomes fully formed. The little will-o-the-wisp of an idea will fleetingly tease my memory for a while before fully exposing itself and developing into a fully fledged painting. My sketchbooks are invaluable tools for me to be able to work in this way.
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| Riding along the shore acrylic on board 20x50cm ©2012 Lisa Le Quelenec |
6 comments:
You must be pleased with this...it's turned out rather well and looks great framed.
Love the light, Lisa and the composition format with this. Excellent, well done !!
I really enjoyed seeing your process and pictures/thumbnails. Wonderful painting!
Good morning Maggie, thank you. It was a toss up on the frame between a whitened wood or a warm silver. I think this works. Sometimes the paintings with the fewest colours are the hardest to frame.
Thanks Carole, I'm enjoying panoramic formats at the moment . I think it's a phase I'm going through.
Hi Sarah, I enjoy seeing peoples process too. I'm looking forward to Loriann's peek-a-boo and looking at all the sketchbooks. Thank you about the painting.
Very nice! I love beach scenes most and you did such a great job on the sky and waves...I'm still trying to master that.
Hi Heather, and welcome. It's lovely to see a new face. Water is so challenging isn't it, as soon as you think you've gotten it the weather changes and the goal posts move. Thank you for taking the time to comment.
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