09-04-2016, 02:48 AM
I did a really quick paint over. Its very crude but I hope it shows a simple point. I wanted to point out a lack of variation in your compositions. You're blocking things in with opaque shapes which is a good start but these paintings lack variation in levels of detail. Picking a central focus for the piece and concentrating more variation gives the eye a nice place to latch on to. Like with this painting of the islands I added more variation where I thought the focus of the painting should be. Never mind my crappy brush work or the incorrect scale of the trees.
The clouds have a nice use of variation and could make for a good focal point if not for the fact that they by their nature, have less contrasting values in comparison to the islands. Remember to squint. The eye will always go to the area of most value contrast. I added more variation in the foreground since you have a very large dead area there with one solid flat value. Adding a bit of variation in there will break up that unused area a little. Variation simply means differing values, hues or saturation which adds more visual interest. Its good that your approaching things with large groupings of shapes but try throwing in smaller shapes in the focal point to contrast the simple shapes around it.
The clouds have a nice use of variation and could make for a good focal point if not for the fact that they by their nature, have less contrasting values in comparison to the islands. Remember to squint. The eye will always go to the area of most value contrast. I added more variation in the foreground since you have a very large dead area there with one solid flat value. Adding a bit of variation in there will break up that unused area a little. Variation simply means differing values, hues or saturation which adds more visual interest. Its good that your approaching things with large groupings of shapes but try throwing in smaller shapes in the focal point to contrast the simple shapes around it.