CRITIQUE 12 - TWO ABSTRACTS part 1 and 2

QUESTION from Jan Stickland:  Please give me your honest opinion of them and if i could improve on them somehow
ANSWER:  
Hi Jan - thank you so much for submitting for a critique!  Your abstracts are vibrant and full of color!  Very lovely!!
I don't need to talk color as you have a vast knowledge of it already!!
But I will talk about using value to set up a composition in a painting like this where you cannot lean on the structure of shapes to create the composition.

When an image has a lot of the same or similar value it may not have a strong focal point or direction for the eye to follow or be held in the piece.  
If you notice in the first image, it is much the same value overall, however, there is a hint of the eye heading toward the vortex...  so - If I enhanced that though hopefully we will see a stronger composition with interest to make the eye travel within the piece and also an area to slightly hold the eye's interest.
ORIGINAL PAINTING:

EDITED IMAGE:
Note the stronger lighted areas and how they grab your eye and lead you around the painting in a swirl motion to the center dark area just below the highlighted school of fish.

 There are several patterns that artists utilize in paintings whether they are abstract or representational.  one is the z pattern another is the triangle and so on.  These patterns make the eye follow through the piece to "read" it and create visual interest and visual sense.

For people who read left to right the eye naturally looks for patterns that match that idea.  Same with right to left readers, etc.
A strong pattern in this piece (to me) is a triangle

This is not the only answer, of course...  but it might give you a jump start!  
Best of luck with your work - it is wonderful!!
cj
PART 2:

QUESTION from Jan Stickland:  Please give me your honest opinion of them and if i could improve on them somehow
ANSWER:  PART 2 
Hi Jan - thank you so much for submitting for a critique!  Your abstracts are vibrant and full of color!  Very lovely!!  And I apologize for the photoshop mutilation of your artwork!  ;)
Again, great use of color and great excitement and movement in your 
ORIGINAL WORK:

Of course - for every "rule" there is the exception!  
I spoke a bit about patterns with your last abstract piece in part 1.

We read from left to right and tend to read paintings in the same manner.  If we don't  find landmarks where we expect them, then we are confused and do not know that to look at.
So, as in this piece, we give em landmarks via shape size and by changing value and contrasting areas in this
CRITIQUE:

So you see ... we have set the pattern the eye will follow with the falling orbs into a dark center with a glowing atmosphere that leads to the focal point of the highest contrasting values which is the left edge of the "hole"    
So you can set up tried and true patterns in your paintings - OR, you can set your own path for the eye to follow through your piece.
I hope that helps some - and remember - everything said is brought from that person's experiences in life - so you might find other solutions that work just as well from your experiences.  
There are many paths to the same goal! -cj
Best to you -
CJ

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CRITIQUE 11- Rocky Pass

QUESTION from Magga Rósa:    Would you be kind enough to tell me what I can do with this one. I´m a bit bored with it.

 Is the sky too blue?  Should I put a flying seabird in front of the painting, to make it more interesting?

ANSWER and CRITIQUE:

Lovely painting!! 
My idea would be to lead the viewer through your painting using value and bright color pops. 

To test your Bird idea: You could also cut a small bird in a correct size for placement out of paper (believable color) and place him around in appropriate areas of your painting to see if he would add or detract.  

My gut feeling is he would detract from or steal the scene.  But you don't know until you test it out.

with some direct painting, I would enhance the sky behind and water in front of the pass through the rocks. Here is an image with a few notes:

Why I edited color and value to make a story and path for the eye to follow:

1. The eye enters the painting gently from the front edge and is gently lead to the pass via color and higher values... 2. you pass through and the brighter sky over the left hump makes you glance, 3. but the longer area of bright blue sky and swoop of the rock on the right leads you to the right side of the painting.  4. A secondary opening is between the right rock and the series of 3 rocks.  I have grayed down the right hand sky and water to hold the eye within the painting.  5. you pass back to the front of the painting on the right side through the grayed areas of the sky and water... 6. you may look all the way to the front left but the grayed water is such that your eye goes back to the values and bright color leading you back through the opening. 

see the ideas below in the edited image minus the text:

I do over-accentuate my ideas via photoshop -  you actually may not want the changes to be this drastic..  ;)

ORIGINAL:

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CRITIQUE 10 - Values

QUESTION from Terry: Please have a look at this one for me CJ..  It's been on the back burner since 06 and really needs to escape from the studio.It's four feet square, Acrylic on an Oak Plywood panel..

ANSWER: AND CRITIQUE
Terry,   Cool painting! Time to finish it up!!  ;)
I would work with the values-

Enhance main character:  Highlights on the main character bring the eye more strongly to the focal point. Note how I have added several brightened areas to the main figure... You don't want to add too much, but just enough to make the eye see the whole figure and stay interested with maybe a glimpse or two to the outer edges.

I also enhanced the row of ladies as I feel they are of secondary importance. In turn, I enhanced some of the grass at the dancer's feet to lead the eye to and from the dancers.

To help the eye know what to look at, I dulled down the color on the sides to keep the eye from becoming overwhelmed with bright value and color. especially hot spots of color in the form of one bloom or several.

You can dull down the background areas with a thin glaze of grayed down color and of course you can enhance the figure with stronger/lighter and brighter color via glazes and direct painting.
 EDITED IMAGE:


ORIGINAL IMAGE:

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Tip on acheiving VALUE balance in your art

grayscale posturized image vs full color image

Many paintings fail due to poor value balance.

If a painting is nearly all one value, it will lack life even if it is correct compositionally.

A way to see value is to:

1. Open image in photoshop
2. At the top of the screen select: Image/mode/grayscale
3. At the top of the screen select: Image/adjustments/posturize
4. set for around "5"
5. with experimentation of the numbers in step #3 and 4 you can see that the higher the setting the more detail shows up.
   
6. the idea is to not have the detail and only see larger shapes of value (light and dark).

As a pre-painting step - run your image through this process and then reference the resulting print-out to make sure you preserve proper values as you paint.

You can also take a photo of a completed painting and run it through this process to see if you have the needed value balance within the piece.

If you posturize a color image it can assist you in discovering subtle colors or give you coloration ideas to add to your painting!

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