Flowers w butterfly-WIP

[Bill C]

Hey gang,

I could use some suggestions before I get to far. I can't decide how far to go with the background on this piece. Should I just do the flowers and leave the rest of the background white? Should I put in some light greens and fade it out or do the whole background as in the ref. photo?

I'm stumped........

thanks!

[Bill C]

Here's an update, going slow. I need to get a scanner, my digital camera just isn't cutting it!

[Bill C]

I finished this, the backgroung colors in the scan are washed out (particularly the violets). I tried to correct the color balance in PS but didn't have much luck.

[Bill C]

nicely rendered bill. looks pretty and the background suits what is happening in the foreground...it has an illustrative feel to it.

if you aren't looking for that, then DON'T OUTLINE! LOL

now another tthing is composition. by centering your composition and having that empty space on the left, you've divided the painting in half. what i've done is show you another possibility.

I've taken and cropped, and addes somemore of the lilack on the right, and another stem and leaf. This helps break up the left. The other thing I did by cropping and adding a bit more to the left is to put the butterfly almost exactly in the golden mean.

(if you don't understand this, please do a search in the composition forum for golden mean)

This helps give movement to the whole composition. You can see how it is by the cross lines...the golden mean is a 5:8 ratio

[Bill C]

Arlene,
I hadn't noticed the outlining until you mentioned it, it wasn't intentional. I'll have to keep that in mind in the future.

As far as composition goes I like the changes you made, it looks more balanced. I've never paid a lot of attention to composition , I usually just draw what I see in the ref. photo. I can see that giving thought to good composition can make a big difference. Golden mean is certainly a new one to me. I searched and printed out some threads for study.

Thanks to all for the comments, I appreciate your objective and helpful observations. While my family's oohs and ahhs are nice, they don't help me grow. I've already learned much since finding this sight and plan to learn more.

[Bill C]

again as i posted in sue's thread, once you learn about techniques, you need to study composition and color. I say color because that's what gives our paintings life and if you don't know how colors react to one another, you'll never grow.

same with comp. that's the biggest problem i see here on wc (not everyone and actually i see some great work too). Drawing what's in the ref photo...but what if the ref photo isn't good comp?

Bill did you know I almost never draw what's only in the ref photo? go look at the first and last pages of When time Stopped. besides the drapes, and adding in the flames, you'll also see that after i took the photo, i realized that it was too tight a crop and needed more space on the left side. I also used color not in the photo to pull the eye around the photo...there's no blue at all in the original photo, but i used it in quite a few places, for ex.

next time you have a photo you like, do some thumbnail sketches. play around with different looks. when you do the sketches make sure you put your major values in too...not just an outline.

and read in the comp forum...it's a great place and there are some excellent artists giving some super advice.

[Jazz]

Your Butterfly and flowers are wonderfully delicate Bill,

I do wholeheartedly agree with Arlenes changes they really focus the eye on your beautiful work and that background works much better with Arlenes crop.

It is a lovely piece :) .

How did you know to go light for the background, you see I would have tended towards going dark but the way you did it somehow emphasises the delicacy and summery look of your main subjects.


Huge hugs,


ALI

[Feathers]

I love the delicacy of the butterfly on the flowers. Your decision for the background is excellent. Boy!---I'm anxious for Spring!!!-Anna.

[Denise]

Bill- this looks great!

Denise

[one who sees]

nicely done......found your thread a bit late to suggest anything to help..

composition is very important to creating pleasing arrangements of objects..tons of info on it.....tons of books or online references..

i might have gone dark with the bg....especially since falling in love with darkly colored paper.. :blushing: but it feels like bright sunshine in yours so is very pleasing too!