Monday, November 16, 2009

Manitou Day Lilies Revisited [8”x8” watercolor]

Over the past few years I’ve accumulated a lot of paintings in various stages of completion.  I did this painting and blogged about it about a year ago.   This is what it looked like then.

lillies

Something has always bugged me about it but I couldn’t put my finger on it.  I decided I’d give it one more chance by glazing the busy background and distracting colors in the leaves with a unifying, complementary violet.  A friend was over here painting that day and she suggested that the left lily just wasn’t working shape-wise…  [never-mind that’s how God made it, lol].  So, I went to work reshaping the top petal and pushing it back into the background.  I also lifted some paint out of the lilies and gave them some highlights.  One last step seemed advisable…  I cropped the painting down to make the right lily dominant.  I like it a LOT better.  What do you think?

manitou day lilies

2 comments:

  1. oh wow, isn´t it amazing what a little glazing and cropping can do...although I must say the first version was not too shabby :). But I do like the format of the second version,,it gives a lot more attention to the flowers themselves. Thanks for the lesson in never giving up. Maybe there is hope for a pile of my no goes after all.

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  2. Hi Cheryl: The second version is definitely more focused, but lacks some of the 'life' of the first one. If it were mine, I would put a rich y-o acrylic glaze on the flower to give it some punch. Now maybe the painting looks washed out just in this post, and not in the painting, so best if you judge for yourself.
    Cheers
    Sharon

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