"Up the Creek" 11x14" Oil on Canvas by Richard Robinson.
A babbling brook in Canada, ripe for the painting.
Using your scene as inspiration, not dictation
This classic little scene had all the elements for a beautiful little painting, but it all seemed a bit too much. Where was my centre of interest? Who was the star of the show? Another way to ask yourself this question is, what do I love the most about this scene? For me, it was the light shapes sparkling against the dark forest background.
Once I figured that out it was just a matter of deciding how best to showcase that light. The most obvious thing to do was to darken and simplify the background so that the foreground light would stand out more strongly. I encourage you to look for ways to enhance the actors you love in a scene simply by subduing the other elements. Works every time!
Student Critiques
Up the creek , 9x12” oil, Mark Price
Hey Mark, good work here. I like that you've made your clumps of grasses obvious shapes and formed them well with light and shadow.
The main tree could do with some more shade in the centre and on the left, since the light is coming from the right. The sand banks on the left deserve some light on them too since there's good light on the grasses growing from them. Good job.
Artist: Linda Cooper
Love the expressive brushwork, Linda! Nice shapes in the gloaming forest. A little darker reflections in the water would have helped there - it's gone a bit chalky with white. Nice!
Up the Creek oil 11x14” by Nancy Newton
Nice one Nancy! I really like that you've warmed up the greens and made them browns. Blues and browns make for a beautiful colour scheme. Your brush work in this one has a lot of great variety, and all those little sharp details are really sparkling against the big soft-edged shapes.
You've lost me a little in the transition from blue water to brown water which should be more gradual, and some of the reflections of the grasses could be made more obvious to give a stronger impression of water. Other than that, all good!
Artist: Ellen Sockolov
Beautifully brushed onto the canvas, Ellen! You have a fluid painterly style I enjoy. Now for some of those finer details at the end of the painting I encourage you to slow down and switch to a finer brush.
Fine dark trunks under the tree set against the light behind it (you'll see it in my painting) provide enough sharp detail to hold all the rest of the bigger marks together, to give them a solid anchor in realism.
Also, potentially because of too much hurry, the light sand and horizontal swishes across the water have developed into a pattern of similarly sized and spaced marks. Slow down and plan those in the last moments to avoid pattern making. Good job!
Up the Creek, Oil on 11 x 14 Linen Sheet by Louise Villegas
Nice work, Louise. You've got that background receding really nicely and softly glowing with light. Your little spots and light in the grasses and tree are working well - looks like dappled light.
There's a nice variety of brushwork and texture, though I feel you could add in a little more randomness to it to give it more interest. I'm thinking mainly of the grasses here. The too-straight and dark trunks in the back look a bit conspicuous.
Making them a little lighter blue blue would settle them back and putting a wriggle in them and making one thinner would help a lot in making them look more natural and less chop-sticky. Overall, great work!
I'll take you step by step through this whole rich process and you can choose which parts you'd like to try out in your own work.
“Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.” – Edgar Degas.
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