July WIP: Beach Day
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It's been a while since I've done this but I couldn't pass up this months prompt. I struggled getting an interesting composition for a few days and almost gave up. Wish I had saved out earlier versions to show how much of a mess it was but I think I am in a good spot now. I was inspired after a recent summer vacation/road trip and had a beach day with a bit too much wind. Great kite weather though.
I would love some feedback before I start painting. Any suggestions on how I can improve this? Thanks!
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looks great to me !!
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Great idea. I would look at the bucket, the sides are not even and how the water flows out looks flat. Maybe the bears left shoulder/hand - it should be more to our right, little bit of it. the foot, I would move its right foot more down, now it looks like the foot and his botty is almost with the shoulder. I would also rise the ocean horintal line higher. The hands are little bit massive now, smaller would look cuter. Hope it helps. The castle is awesome and the sandwich, maybe one tomato could also flew out from the sandwich. You did great
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I wish I could provide some solid feedback on how to go about painting this but I’m still learning in that department myself.
I just wanted to chime in and let you know that I think you have a great composition here so far. Very readable, good image and lots of potential. I can’t wait to see it when you finish. Good luck!
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Hi, Branden! Here are my suggestions. I think your composition is a bit stiff since most of the objects were in profile view. So what I would suggest is to mix up the positions of the objects. Below is my suggestion. I tilted the bucket And turned the basket around to add variety. I also moved the sand castle a bit lower to emphasize that the bear is taking off. I hope this helps.
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Thank you so much! This feedback is spot-on. I thought about tilting the bucket as well but got lazy and decided not to fix it. But will change it up now that someone else called it out. Thanks for taking the time to do a paint over! I appreciate it.
@Nyrryl-Cadiz said in July WIP: Beach Day:
Hi, Branden! Here are my suggestions. I think your composition is a bit stiff since most of the objects were in profile view. So what I would suggest is to mix up the positions of the objects. Below is my suggestion. I tilted the bucket And turned the basket around to add variety. I also moved the sand castle a bit lower to emphasize that the bear is taking off. I hope this helps.
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@MichaelaH The sides of the bucket were even at one point. But I tried distorting/stretching it as if it was picked up off the ground quickly. I’ll fix it.. will take all of your other feedback into account. Especially the hands. It’s a constant struggle with hands for me. Thank you so much for taking the time to provide valuable feedback!
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Hi @Branden-Brushett First of all I would advise you to try and thumbnail the concept and composition a bit more before you start adding the details to save on time and to see what works and what doesn't,
At the moment I feel that your piece is too bottom heavy as in that there is a lot of action going on the the bottom half of the image and not a lot in the top area creating an uncomfortable balance. The painting also lacks energy for such an energy focused concept, to correct this I would try avoid hard flat lines such as the horizon of the sea and the clouds and try add a bit more horizontals in.
The depth of the objects in the scene also could be improved upon by overlapping objects to show their comparison in space. Try to identify your background, middle ground and foreground a bit better to get a better sense of the objects size and position. The right lighting will also help this later on too.
I hope you don't mind but I have done a quick sketch to illustrate some of what I mean, it might not be your style of painting or how you want to illustrate your piece, but hopefully it gives you another look into how it could be done. I've adjusted the horizon to give the piece more movement and pushed the picnic basket to the front to add depth with the water bucket and other small objects from the basket flying off into the background. The beach is now quite far down down to create a nice background scene with the sky and sea.
I hope that all helps in some way.