Out Beyond the Shore, Oil on Canvas, 30 x 30, L. Daniel © 2020
SOLD
Today's "fix it" subject is a large piece that I first painted in 2009... 11 years ago!! At the time, I liked it well enough, but as it never sold, it began the art storage shuffle. It went from one closet to another, under a bed, back to a closet, etc. (You artist friends know what I am talking about! And hey, 11 years goes fast!!) Eventually it ended up in the "to be gessoed over" stack in my garage. After all, I thought, it's a large canvas and I can use it again. Ever the frugal one, am I.
Well, at the last minute, I decided to try and resurrect it. Here are the results. You can still "find" the original in there, but it became a new painting and... it's going in my upcoming show!
BEFORE (painted 11 years ago in 2009)
AFTER (edited in 2020)
CHANGES:
Problem 1 - Color palette was too intense.
Fix 1 - Covered up almost ALL of that intense orange.
Fix 2 - Saved intense orange for pop at sun (focal point) and foreground reflections.
Problem 2 - Painting lacked depth (especially in sky).
Fix 1 - Muted down the color at the horizon to push that into the distance.
Fix 2 - Added a cloud pattern to establish space with overlapping layers and values.
Fix 3 - Made sun smaller and lower to make it look farther away.
Problem 3 - Brushwork was amateurish.
Fix 1 - Replaced overlarge mark-making with passages of painterly strokes.
Fix 2 - Replaced too-broad single strokes with accurately sized highlights.
Problem 4 - Rocks looked flat, like cutouts.
Fix 1 - Reworked masses for a more defining profile.
Fix 2 - Added highlights reflected from the sun to give volume.
OBSERVATIONS:
Biggest takeaway??? Color loses its power when used everywhere in a painting. Reducing the overall orange-ness and bringing in lots of neutrals, made the remaining color much more effective. Those pops of orange now direct the eye right to the focal point of this piece, which is always the goal. It's all about restraint... knowing when to hold back!
And now I digress, but... isn't this true of many things? We tend toward overdoing. If we like it, well, more, more, more! I'm reminded of something a dear friend shared at a particularly over-committed time of my life, "you can choke on good food too, you know." She was right.
