At the Botanical Garden

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Comment by Laurena Beirnes on May 17, 2016 at 2:56

Thank you Michael.  There were a few things that bothered me about the painting and you have given me the answers!  I always appreciate your time and your teaching.  Many thanks.

Comment by Michael J. Severin on May 16, 2016 at 7:44

Hi Laurena ... a tremendous start .... try some of these suggestions to finish:  take your sky color and whittle into the right side of your main tree ... see if you can give it a more interesting positive and negative shape ... put some dappled light onto your foreground grass and road, put some blue violet into the shadow parts of your path, put some sky holes (a very, very, few ... but not arbitrary ...design them)  into your main tree, paint a background plane ... maybe put a distant hillside in the distance ... you do not want your landscape to seem like it is the end of the world.  Lastly, punch up some more light on your focal point lavender.  Laurena ..this is important to remember for future paintings:  try to keep each plane ... sky plane, upright plane (trees), slanted plane, and ground (flat) plane .. a different value.  In your painting, you have the foreground grass and path the same value as the tree (upright plane).  When you have 2 or more planes sharing the same value, it tends to flatten out the image.  Sorry for the technical stuff ... maybe just be aware of that in future paintings.