Rodeo Beach, 032115

9x12 oil on board. Painted with California Art Club group on Saturday. It needs some work to finish, but I would love to hear from your comment, critics before I do anthing. Thanks!

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Comment by Laura Xu on March 29, 2015 at 16:31: Hi Glenys, thank you so much for your comments and suggestions. I will review it carefully and try to apply all in the next painting. I really appreciate your comment.

Comment by Glenys Jones on March 29, 2015 at 16:06: Laura, my eye was immediately drawn to the dark face of the cliff. A few more colour variations would connect it better if you added some subtle lighter aspects at certain points. I like what you have done with the waves in the image further down. also, your greens in the foreground and on the top of the cliff look very similar. Greens in the distance are usually cooler, colours in the foreground are warmer as a rule. I really like your sky, water and lovely distance achieved at the horizon.

Comment by Laura Xu on March 27, 2015 at 17:48: Wow, Eddie, Thank you very much for your detailed suggestions. I will take the time to carefully read and understand your comments and look at my painting again with them in mind. Actually I am planning go back the place paint it again.

Comment by Eddie Morris on March 27, 2015 at 17:06: I have admired you work on here Laura but have not commented until now. Had I not read your comments, I would've thought you painted this from a photo. I love your style. You do nice work. Getting to the next level is tough. Next time you go out to paint, spend the first 15 minutes observing your scene. Understanding what you are looking at and what is going on will really help you continue to get even better than you already are. For example, the hill on the right. It rolls over gently at top and is going away from you. Paint that. What is the sky doing? The light at the horizon has to travel farther to reach your eye then the light overhead. A little darker overhead than at the horizon. General rule for nature scenes (always exceptions!): Skies tend to be the lightest value, flat ground planes receive the most light but will still be darker than the sky, angle planes receive less light and will be darker than the flat planes, and vertical plans receive the least amount of light and will be your darkest planes. Try mixing some pools of color that accurately portray the values of each area on your palette and trust what you see there as you paint. Don't adjust anything until you have something covering the painting. You had some great comments below on spacial division, etc. so I concentrated on atmospheric perspective here. Happy painting. Love looking at your stuff.

Comment by Laura Xu on March 26, 2015 at 10:55: It seems improved little bit in some way, but still not sure a about the cliff.

Comment by Laura Xu on March 26, 2015 at 5:41: Jim, Thank you very much for your comment. We all unhappy about Darks. I will fix it! Thank you again!

Comment by Laura Xu on March 26, 2015 at 5:40: Michael, I agree with you! I couldn't see very well that day. I did stand very close by the place and very early morning, lots of excuses. The first thing I told myself is block in darks and not dark enough, more darks :). I am so happy you mentioned the land issue, I will fix it. I got some time today, I will see what I can do with the painting. The big problem to me is composition issue when I paint plein aire. I will spend more time to do the design work in the future painting.

Comment by Michael J. Severin on March 26, 2015 at 4:53: Laura, I like your use of the grayed colors as befitting the weather ...but your values are not relating very well. Your blackish cliff is out of "key" with the rest of your values. There is a huge tonal weight at that spot .. The particular shape of that dark cliff .... a long arch, is too fast and contributes to its unwanted dominance. Also, Laura, you really need to be aware of your spacial divisions. Your land shape and overall light shape are mirror images in size and shape........if you carve out the left side of your foreground with the ocean, it will solve that problem and also give you better shape to the ocean and create a lead in. The foreground must "invite" the viewer to enter your painting. Laura, why is that cliff so dark? was there a cloud shadow?

Comment by Jim Beatty on March 26, 2015 at 0:41: Nice painting. The most dominant edge and darkest dark draw attention to the rocks in shadow if that's the intention.