The Centerville River revisited

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Comment by Susan Burke on July 29, 2015 at 12:36

Candi, Well said! May we all come to know these things ourselves! Richard has created an extraordinary site here filled with good, kind people who share our common passion. I feel like I'm among friends---once you have that, everything else is easy! 

Comment by Candi Hogan on July 29, 2015 at 12:19

Thanks Susan for laying your self wide open so we can all benefit from Michael's critique.  May we all come to know these things ourselves, instinctively, in the future!  Thanks Michael for your eye and your

knowledge!

Comment by Susan Burke on July 29, 2015 at 12:04

Joy, I agree! Michael, that's a lot to digest! I'm going to take them one at a time and compare them to the painting and then I'm going to try the painting over again. I tend to want to paint exactly what's in the scene and not think about making it the best painting! Just from a quick take on the simpler aspects, now I see the equilateral triangles. I see what you mean about the color and temperature being too balanced and I see that the little inlet on the left takes the viewer out of the picture....you're a good teacher, you explain things well! Thank you so much for taking the time to help me here! Now I'm off to delve into the entire critique and see what I can do on the next go around!!

Comment by Michael J. Severin on July 29, 2015 at 10:06

Okay me again.  Anyway, that will help you achieve your warm color dominance.  Then just establish a focal point ..maybe the boat ..some life around the river?   Okay, I feel  like I have really piled on ..and I am sorry if I did ..please forgive me. 

Comment by Michael J. Severin on July 29, 2015 at 9:55

Hi Susan.  Okay, let me go ahead and critique a few things about this painting.  Let's tackle the composition first.  I  am assuming by the title that your concept is the glorious story of the river and the life around the river?  You have set up an "S" composition ..that is good, but you deviate from the S by taking us off to the left and out of the picture.  One of the major clues that we, as artist have, to depict depth is overlapping.  Your painting has nice atmospheric perspective giving us a clue to the recession of the background plane.  But, we do not have a separation between front and middle planes.  If you overlap the foreground grasses with the opposite shore ..from the left edge and over the boat, you will solve 2 problems with your composition ..you will keep the S pattern and not take us out of the painting, and ..you will instantly create a foreground to middle ground separation which will greatly enhance the depth of the painting.  You can move the boat a little more inward so it rests on the golden section....which is a much better placement.    In composition, we strive to get an unequal  distribution of space .  You have 2 equal land masses on each side of the painting.  When you design, try to get  unequal shapes and unequal space division.  Look for interesting irregular shapes ...your foreground grass shape is a equilateral triangle, the shore line on the right is straight, with no ins or outs, and you have another equilateral triangle right at the tip.  If that is the way it looked, then change it ..always look for interesting abstract shapes ..make them up if you need to.  Another equality that you have is your warm and cool colors.  A unified and harmonious painting exists through the use of Dominance and Variety.  Repetition promotes unity, but must be tempered by variety.  We must strive to set up contrasts.  So, in your painting, you have an equal amount of warm (yellow/greens) and a equal amount of cool (blue).  You need a dominance of one of these ..the other takes a back seat.  Your painting is unified when there is a dominant something, and a contrasting subordinate something.  That includes every element in a painting.  You have plenty of repetition, but without the necessary variety.  There is repetition in the trees ..(shapes and color),  color  (yellow/green),  and  houses, but no variety.  You have repetition in your pier ..evenly spaced posts ....think variety when you do repeats of anything.   Susan, one of the biggest things in this painting is its lack of a dark/light pattern ..or notan.  You also lack a clear focal point.  If you take us down this river, you must reward us when we get to the end.  We  do not want to swim or boat down this river for nothing.  So, maybe you could  ..on the left bank ..put some of those trees into shadow ..leaving the trees in front in the sunlight?  make some of those left bank trees taller ..all the way out of the picture plane.  That will give you another plane in front of the distant trees and will give you a better sky shape.  Same thing with the other side ..can you put shadow on that far right tree? ..bring it up taller ..out of the picture top.   Find ways to connect darks ..see those bushes on the right? ..well, how about casting a longer shadow that would connect the darks of the bushes and the dark of the trees?  How about having the foreground grasses come out of shadow from the left?  Now, how are we to change the dominance of the color? ...Well, I would suggest you make the warm tones your dominant color ...to do this, you will need to throw warm tree reflections into the river.  Will continue, I am at my 4000 words!!

Comment by Susan Burke on July 29, 2015 at 7:30

Michael, looking forward to it. There's a lot about this painting that I like; but, there's a lot that I know needs improvement. I know the little marsh in front is not what I want it to be. I live on Cape Cod, we have salt marshes all over with just incredible views--just begging to be painted; but, by the time I get them "right", I've overworked them---a big flaw of mine!

Comment by Susan Burke on July 29, 2015 at 7:27

Thank you, Sarah! It is near where I live, it's one of my favorite views on Cape Cod--and if you turn around on the bridge from which the reference photo for this painting was taken, there's about 75 feet of river, a spit of land about 30 or 40 feet wide and then the uninterrupted vista of the Nantucket sound! Beautiful place! You can't see it in this picture; but at the top of the hill where the long dock is is a beautiful old mansion that I always dream I'll live in one day!

Comment by Sarah Bottjer on July 29, 2015 at 6:13

What a pretty place Susan! Is it near where you live? I especially like the grasses at the front but I also like the water with its transparent areas. Very nice!

Comment by Michael J. Severin on July 28, 2015 at 3:40

Thanks Susan.  I will come back to this painting later on in the day.

Comment by Susan Burke on July 27, 2015 at 10:31

Thanks, as always, Cristina!!

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