Pushing Parameters

Last week I talked about trying to push the

personal envelope of conformity, i.e. trying to see

the subject at hand in a new way a la Larry Moore and

his book, Fishing for Elephants.

Last week I shared two starts to a painting of a bridge. In reality those two beginnings looked pretty much as if they would lead right down the same path when completed.  So I summoned up my grit and made myself crop, slice, dice and otherwise reshape the composition at hand to produce some new compositional formats.

Here is a page in my sketch book where I drew out a very simple black and white (notan) thumbnail of the 3 different compositions:

I numbered them 1-3 and you will note that each is a different support size.

Then I got busy transferring some of these designs to canvas with neutral colors in oil trying only to get 3 tones laid down.

#1

The darks always seem to photograph a lot blacker than they really are but you get the idea here of where the shadows are going.  It is easy to sit and look at it at this stage and see that it is slightly unbalanced even though I want the right side to be dark.  Fortunately, at this point it will be an easy fix.

#2

This is a very verticle canvas which meant the expanse of bridge would be cropped out but I think with the skinny tree in the foreground that will be ok.  There is not as many deep tones in this rendition and while they move nicely I do want to connect those darks in the water to the bridge shadows.

#3

The final composition focuses on the far side of the darkened bridge but will offer some growth in the foreground.  I want to move the eye from the front left to the center right and then back to a spot of light beyond the bridge.  This will be a trick but I think it is very doable.  I just have to remember to paint the forest and not get lost in a few prominent trees!

Each of these is taken from the same photograph but offers a slightly different perspective on the scene.  I want to stay loose on my interpretation - after all, doing 5 of the same bridge should result in at least one rendering that is client-acceptable and 4 that are arty in their own way.

Cheers for Experimenting,

Cindy