Saturday 13 September 2008

The repitition of agricultural produce

The produce in question: of course the cornfield.

While the last attempt yielded long grasses, it was far too wild and rugged for good German, intensively fertilised corn. So, rather than pursuing Brian's good advice for variation, I veered intensively into the opposite direction: repetition, repitition, repetition (which figures as another point on his list).

So much so that I felt I was doing a caricature rather than a pastel painting. That wasn't a bad feeling, though: I'd love to be able to do them, but again: a lack of illustration skills gets in the way.

Just for memory purposes:

The first attempt at something bigger cornfieldish is here

Cornfields
Cornfields, Acrylics/Pastel on board 35x25cm

This, then is Cornfields # 2

Cornfield #2
Cornfields #2
Pastels/Acrylics on board, 35x25cm

And? Enough repetitive intensity?

Cornfield #2 Detail
Cornfields #2 Detail
Pastels/Acrylics on board, 35x25cm

I think so. But all the same, I notice something majorly wrong with this. Do you see it?

A hint: try to figure out time of day, direction of sun etc - usually the practicalities I don't bother with too much when I pick hues/values I want to. But with this one it struck me afterwards - too much realism gone wrong: The trees are getting full on sun from the left (south east) while the distance is almost in an evening/dust type dullness. Doesn't quite work, does it?

Will fix it, though. And then let cornfields be cornfields for a while.

2 comments:

Casey Klahn said...

You have achieved some wonderful colors here, Gesa. They stand apart for that reason alone.

Light direction? I couldn't care less - these have their own light!

Gesa said...

Thank you, Casey. The colour intensity was good fun, I must admit: most of the colours I tend to use rather sparingly, but kind of muting/neutralising them by placing them close next to each other in the field was aj interesting experiment - it ends up such a vibrant neutral, well, probably the same as mixing your greys and blacks from scratch.
LOL - light direction. Yes, I do agree but that middle ground wants a bit more attention nonetheless, it tells me.