Winslow Homer:
Look at nature, work independently, and solve your own problems.
Exam Design First - "What Is The Center of Interest?"
This month's piece for improvement is a painting of old water village in southern China. Originally, I wanted to paint an early morning scene. And in the painting, I wanted to express the beauty of morning filtered lights, with cool shadows on a group of interesting shapes. However, when I finished "Old Town In China I", I was not very satisfied with myself on the overall design. or contrast?
How can I do better next time?
First, i tried to crop the parts that are not very helpful for my center of interest. You see in this illustration that if I do so, with making the center piece a lot bigger, I could still archive the original goal but eliminating all "useless" parts: these extra houses and water details I piled into the painting are the ones that should not be there at all!
With the convenience of using a software, I tried on the digital photo of the original painting, got this new possible design: same value patter, same but much more prominent center of interest. I like this design much better.
I also noticed that I might put too much emphasis on value contrast in a couple of areas. I could probably reduce some value contrast by converting some value shapes into color shapes with range of intensity and hue. In another words, I could make the darker part of the painting, especial on the walls, more transparent with better selected complimentary colors.
After a couple of days planning and thinking about the improvements, I finally pull out a new piece of paper, and painted this "Old Town In China II".
As planned, now I first emphasized my center of interest by enlarging the bridge and houses, giving this group of connected shape a dominance for the painting. i also worked on range of complimentary colors - blues and light hue of yellows, in combination with carefully saved whites, to express the dancing sun light in the morning. I limited my darks only around necessary areas, while keeping the overall painting in an unified mid value range.