This is a painting that I did about 4 months ago to enter into a juried contest. At the time, I was getting ready to go out of town and was rushing - never a good way to get a successful painting. My original idea was to show how we focus on flowers when looking at a plant. I wanted the three flowers to be three snapshots that brought your eyes to the beauty of the flowers. My plan was to have the background very faded and the snapshots much brighter to show how we really don't usually pay attention to the other parts of the plant. (Of course we, as artists, probably do notice the whole plant.)
I thought it was a good idea but it didn't come across as I wanted for two main reasons. First, choosing yellow flowers was a mistake because yellow has such a light value intensity even at it's brightest so by also having the background light, my flowers didn't really pop. I did make the blue more intense in the snapshot area too but it wasn't enough. Secondly, there was too much background that was faded looking and the whole painting was too washed out. I've cropped out about 3 inches from the bottom because there was still too much background. It may be too bottom heavy now. I only cropped it in the photo so I can change my mind on that part.
I wasn't sure how to fix it without losing my original idea. I looked at it for months with no idea. Finally, I decided to darken the background but use muted, more drab colors to bring the attention to the snapshots. The finished painting is actually a bit brighter than this photo shows it to be. Below is the original painting before I "fixed" it. I'm still not sure it really gets my idea across as strongly as I would like but I do think the value contrasts are better in the above painting. I would love to hear your comments or ideas to make it better. I may do a series using this idea. I think that would be fun. By the way, no, the painting didn't get juried into the show. I didn't think it would and in fact I would have been embarrassed if it had. I only entered it because I plan to enter as many contests as I can as a way to push myself and didn't have any other paintings I wanted to enter.
If you like this original painting better - too bad. It's forever altered. Although if you do feel that way I would like to know.
Picture Perfect
Image Size 22" x 15"
Watercolor
Unframed
$325.00
March 2nd post script: I took a new picture of the re-done painting that shows the color better and I "uncropped" the bottom so if you are looking at this post for the first time, don't be confused. The bottom painting is cropped, the top painting isn't.
