[m703-324]

and closeups:
girl
cloud
crits and comments welcome

[Matt Elder]

The image is really nice and tranquil. The close up shows that you've put in a fair amount of work in detail. However when I see the close up, you can notice how it isn't as polished and start looking for those bits of detail in the zoomed out view.

The hill closest to us is very nice but the colour is much lighter than the hill in the background. OK you need to alter colour a little for a sense of depth and maybe there is a cloud or something hiding the background, but the colour difference between the two seems too much. Because of this comparison, the grass in the foreground appears a little bit too flouro.

The only other comment is that the image just doesn't seem finished. There is nothing major to draw your eye to. OK you have a person on a hill but there is nothing dramatic about it. Then in the background you have a windmill but there is nothing dramatic about that either. Thus both sort of fight in my mind for attention and leaving the imagine missing something.

Have a look at some beautiful sunset photos. Notice how there is one major element (either the sun or the shape of clouds) that really catches your eye and invites you to visual investigate the rest of the image. I think you are missing that element in this picture that could really make it a 'great' image. Maybe try to play around with lighting, shadows from clouds etc to cause the eye to be drawn to a particular element in the image and give it that 'dramatic' effect.



Here was a quick thing I did to try to illustrate how light can change how an image feels and make it more 'dramatic'. You may or may not like it obviously being the artist but worth a thought.

[ October 02, 2001: Message edited by: Matt Elder ]

[Bilbo]

very nice.. i really like the way the warm hair and dress colors stand out from within all this green and blue.
i tend to agree with matt about the lack of contrast between the front and back hills, but i think his overpainting is too harsh and totally alters the image's atmosphere-
it should probably be somewhere in the middle.

[Matt Elder]

Heya, as Biblo pointed out, the overpainting is a bit harsh but is intended just to illustrate a point about the contrast (and was doing quickly).

[geoman2k]

i like this... i kinda agree with elder's paintover, but i think he took it too far, made the background way too dark... looks liek theres a big cloud over that hill, and i think that changes the "message" (for lack of better words) behind the painging.
i have a suggestion.. i think the windmill needs to be a bigger part of the painting. its just kinda sitting there in the backgound, kinda like an afterthought. i thikn if it were on the otehr side fo the hill, and a little bit bigger, it would make the painting look a lot better.

[m703-324]

thanx guys... I agree with the contrast stuff... but I will not overpaint that picture... Just i'll keep it in mind when drawing new one