Tuesday, June 7, 2016

Half dome revised

So I have taken my painting of Half Dome and have tried to "fix" some of the problems that I saw, mainly that Half Dome was not the main focus of the painting.
I started with a simple fix: cropping the distracting foreground out (not actually cutting the paper here, just electronically editing).
But then I took it a little further. To actually fix the foreground instead of just cropping it out, I darkened the foreground, and created some layers to draw your eye toward the cliffs. Since the color of the sky and Half Dome were so similar, I also decided to take the sky a little darker...ok, a lot darker, downright stormy. And what would you expect with a storm at Half Dome? Lightning, of course. Using a very fine brush to apply lumpy masking fluid is a challenge but I was able to get some fine lines to create the lightning.
At this point, I have not done anything to the cliffs (although the exposure of the photo made them look more yellow).
 Ok, it seemed like the lightning is a little too much, drawing focus away again, so let's take a little bit of it out but continue to darken the clouds a bit. Hmm, maybe too much?
At this point, I have over-worked my paper and will call it finished. Sometimes I just have to push my comfort zone and keep working a piece, but sometimes I have to know when a painting is finished. Either way, I have learned a few things in the process, so I think I will have to revisit this subject and paint Half Dome again soon.

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