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| Bell Tower at Carmel Mission (c) Mary Hubley |
How do you decide what to paint, when everything in the landscape is screaming for your attention? Here, at Carmel Mission, I was faced with a stimulating landscape that overwhelmed me. The gardens billowed with color, and the rugged Spanish architecture was over the top.
Standing in one spot, I did a slow 360-degree turn, and at each angle I imagined a different masterpiece. Everything vied for my eye.
But when everything stands out, nothing stands out on the canvas. A painting with too much going on is unfocused and jumbled. So, what to do?
5 Ways to Get Your Painting to Stand Out:
- Focus. Decide what's really important. I study the view and determine what I love the most - in this case, it was the flower and sky colors, and the shape of the bell tower.
- Edit. Narrow it down. Don't paint everything. Focus on just the most important aspects of a scene.
- Create a strong composition. All my paintings start with a single-color under-painting to work out the composition first, before adding the complexity of color.
- Block in the values. With the same color as the under-painting, block in the darks, then lights, and finally the mid-tones. Create the highest contrast in the area where you want the eye to go.
- Use a limited palette. Finally, add the color. And don't overdo. Too much color everywhere can end up looking like a jumbled muddy mess.
Genre: Landscape
Painting Name: Bell Tower at Carmel Mission
Size: 20" x 16"
Media: Oil on Canvas
-- Mary Hubley
mary@maryhubley.com
www.maryhubley.com
