genkee sketchbook

[genkee]

Hi trying to improve so any feedback would be great, painted from life spent about an hour i found the colours hard to get right and also i think it looks a bit flat.

[Pookaball]

What is this? A tree stick? I honestly don't know what this is, but I can probably tell you got some nice colourwork there and good depth.

[genkee]

hi thanks for the reply, it's a conker the seed of horse chestnut tree, i saw it on my bike ride and thought it would be great to draw

[JyonnyNovice]

Hey Genkee! Welcome ^^

It's a nice painting, there's some good hue variation and nice shape to it - so it doesn't look flat in those regards. The twig has some really nice texturing going on too. You have a nice bluey green band of reflected light too.

Perhaps it's your values? Do you feel that it looks washed out? My paintings felt like that for ages. Don't be afraid of using much brighter and darker colours, and if a painting is starting to feel a bit 'flat' or washed out, throw in a really bright shade of one of your colours and just work it into the light parts - same with dark colours in the dark parts. (you can also resort to using 'levels' adjustments or 'dodge/burn' tool in photoshop, but better if you can pick the right colour yourself).

It also helps to do value studies - paint something in only greyscale (from a black and white photo or just judging by eye).