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Adam's Art (1 Viewer)

Managed to find time to add a bit more to this painting,hopefully i'll get some more done over the weekend.
 

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Oh! I wondered why it wasn't finished but I can see now how adding the other two in will really bring it to life.

Very nice Adam

D
 
What i love about your art is that your passion for game and your understanding of the movements of driven birds stands out clearly in a similar mannar to someone like Colin Woolf
 
the addition of the other two eiders helps in giving a forward direction, before it seemed like the eider was following the lighthouse, but the changes here are going to make a very strong picture.
 
Thanks again for the very kind comments everyone.

My plan is to make the bird next to the drake a female then the 3rd bird at the bottom another drake,anybody got any thoughts on that plan?
 
birds are beautiful and they feel like they are moving, just as a thought you may want to consider glazing down the lighthouse so it sits back in the painting a bit more, it will give you more space.
 
birds are beautiful and they feel like they are moving, just as a thought you may want to consider glazing down the lighthouse so it sits back in the painting a bit more, it will give you more space.

I think i know what you're getting at but how exactly do you mean 'glaze down'?
I perhaps should have said earlier i dont actually have a clue how to paint i just try something and sometimes it works sometimes it doesnt.
 
Hi Adam
Glazing really just means another layer of colour or medium. What Colleen's suggesting is that you subdue the 'sharpness' of the lighthouse - to knock it out of focus, as it were. This would make the lighthouse appear to be further away than the eiders. One way to do this (I'm sorry, I assume you are using acrylics?) is to mix a very, very diluted grey/blue with lots of water and then you need to have a lot of trust. Paint the whole of the background (excluding the eiders) with a layer of this 'glaze' and, when it dries, the lighthouse will look less prominent. You can add as many layers of glaze as you like - each one will increase the effect (a bit like laying tracing paper over your drawing, time and time again - but it's really quite subtle). If you're using oils, the technique is slightly different and you need longer drying times.
If in doubt, have a bit of a practice on a seperate piece of board first. And your artwork needs to be lying flat when you do this process - otherwise the glaze will run off.

And - although you may feel you are lacking in a few techniques - you certainly have got more than a clue about how to paint.
 
Hi Adam
Glazing really just means another layer of colour or medium. What Colleen's suggesting is that you subdue the 'sharpness' of the lighthouse - to knock it out of focus, as it were. This would make the lighthouse appear to be further away than the eiders. One way to do this (I'm sorry, I assume you are using acrylics?) is to mix a very, very diluted grey/blue with lots of water and then you need to have a lot of trust. Paint the whole of the background (excluding the eiders) with a layer of this 'glaze' and, when it dries, the lighthouse will look less prominent. You can add as many layers of glaze as you like - each one will increase the effect (a bit like laying tracing paper over your drawing, time and time again - but it's really quite subtle). If you're using oils, the technique is slightly different and you need longer drying times.
If in doubt, have a bit of a practice on a seperate piece of board first. And your artwork needs to be lying flat when you do this process - otherwise the glaze will run off.

And - although you may feel you are lacking in a few techniques - you certainly have got more than a clue about how to paint.



I am using oils.

I think I maybe am more than just lacking a few techniques as that all sounds very technical and not sure I have the confidence or knowledge to pull that off without ruining the picture altogether.

I do agree that the lighthouse is to prominant and the whole background needs to look 'further away' i'll see what i can do.
 
Thanks again for the very kind comments everyone.

My plan is to make the bird next to the drake a female then the 3rd bird at the bottom another drake,anybody got any thoughts on that plan?

Personally i'd put the two drakes together, but either would work well
 
Adam if you are using oils, it's actually easier than acrylic. Take one of the sky tones or a grey blue as Tim suggests, no darker in value than the light sky, then take a bit of medium, not plain turps, and mix with the paint and brush over the dry lighthouse and parts of the sky by the horizon....just keep spreading it thinner and thinner with a stiff brush, don't make it soupy with the medium, if it's too much you can take a cloth and wipe off parts of it until you are happy,( a great way to do fog) if nothing much happens, then you can do another layer when it's dry. Maxfield Parrish used to do 60 to 70 layers of glaze on his work which is why it is so luminous. It really helps make the painting seem full of light and more atmosphere.

If you google "glazing with oil paint" you'll probably get a dozen different ways to do it. I use something more complicated, but what I gave you will work just fine.
 
Thanks for the advice, this is all a bit over my head at the moment but i'll do a bit of researching into it and see what i can do.



Jacana: the main reason i was going to split the Drakes either side of the female is i'm less confident about painting the female and i'm effectivly trying to 'hide' the female between the 2 drakes incase it doesnt come out aswell as the drakes.
 
Well i think its finnished,fairly happy with the end result though as expected not so happy with the female Eider.
I like the sound of the glazing down idea but its a bit over my head at the moment but something i'll look into.
 

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Oh yes - that's worked splendidly. There's a very real sense of that North Eastern light in this piece; a real feeling of place - cracking job!
 
I love it! I don't know if you did anything with the lighthouse in the end, but now the eider are in place it makes it less noticable. Really lovely
 
Thanks, i did go over the dark parts of the lighthouse and rocks with a very thin layer of pale colour which seemed to push it into the back ground a bit also finnishing the birds i think has brought them to the foreground and pushed the lighthouse back.
 
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