# Some advice please ? :)



## Kalgaros (Mar 27, 2016)

Hey there world ! I had to search for a few days some kind of forum that could help me with advices and critique on my paintings, then I found this forum 
Could you guys tell me your critique opinion on this thing? Firstly, I must say that it's more like an "experiment". I tried to replicate Van Gogh's color modulation with a little bit of my own touch, this wasn't meant to be some kind of composition or a story painting.
Thank you


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## abt2k15 (Jan 9, 2016)

i like the strokes on the bottom part. the sky seems kind of rushed? idk. cool idea tho. now you have the background.. put another layer with soemthing something in there and turn it into a composition hehe :biggrin:


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## Bushcraftonfire (Apr 22, 2015)

Interesting work.. I agree that the leaves draw you into the composition nicely.. What kind of input are you looking for specifically? Color? Shading? Tonal variation? Contrast??

And welcome to the forum!!


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## Kalgaros (Mar 27, 2016)

abt2k15 said:


> i like the strokes on the bottom part. the sky seems kind of rushed? idk. cool idea tho. now you have the background.. put another layer with soemthing something in there and turn it into a composition hehe :biggrin:


Sorry for the late reply. Well the sky might look rushed, because I couldn't do it as detailed as the soil is, as a difference had to be visible. I doubt that i'll be adding anything new to it, maybe improving what it already has. Thank you for commenting xD


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## Kalgaros (Mar 27, 2016)

Bushcraftonfire said:


> Interesting work.. I agree that the leaves draw you into the composition nicely.. What kind of input are you looking for specifically? Color? Shading? Tonal variation? Contrast??
> 
> And welcome to the forum!!


Wow, my first post and a Super Moderator comments on it, I feel honored 
Well, mostly I was looking towards the tonal variation(I was aimming for a very slight one, but still visible), but also the "outlining" that Van Gogh has, the way that he makes obvious the the way he brushed the canvas.
And Thanks for the warm welcoming


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## Bushcraftonfire (Apr 22, 2015)

Ok.. 

Tonal variation is ok.. but I would push it a lot more.. This in itself would help the contrast.. which in this painting could be more aggressive as well. Try throwing some darks next to lights.. and varying the colors more.. and it will help the painting "Jump" more. Right now all of the tones are middle ground. You need some lights and darks to really emphasize the piece.


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## Kalgaros (Mar 27, 2016)

Hmm.. Should I make those darks as shadows or solid objects ? I think making them solids would stabilzie the work a little bit, though if I manage to do it the right way, those shades might just make it a lot more "fluid", wich could look nice


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## Bushcraftonfire (Apr 22, 2015)

Try it.. the painting is *YOU*! No one else can tell you what to do with it.


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## Kalgaros (Mar 27, 2016)

I agree with you, but it never hurts to get critique opinions.


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## abt2k15 (Jan 9, 2016)

im not sure if i truly understand your problem but when it comes to shapes and tonal stuff i always simplify it to black and white.
easy done with photoshop hehe. so in picture nr1 you see the VALUES. this if you look at that famous piece of van gogh you will notice
a significant difference between your piece and the one van gogh made : van gogh knew exactly about values so even with all the color
stripped off the image you can still see every form clearly seperating from each other. 
your study however is alot harder to read in black and white since the VALUES are too close to each other to really seperate "objects"
like floor and sky. you can do but its clearly easier to read with van goghs piece.

the second picture is a suggestion and demonstration about how values define your composition. what i did was while it was still set
to greyscale ( with a effect layer which i can turn off and on w/o changing the picture ) i just darkened the ground by just adding more
value to it. i.e. raise the saturation ( and turned down the brightness a bit ) to get a darker VALUE of the same color. i did the oposite
to the sky minus some random "darken" strokes. which resulted in somewhat of a sky. i lowered the saturation of the colors and lightened
them a tiny bit except for some cloud spots and the sun/moon. then i turned off the greyscale layer and thats what came out as colors.

now you can seperate the main objects way better. i know you cannot replay my method traditionally but you can study other peoples work
that way and eventually one day you will be able to naturally see and use the correct values for your chosen color ^^


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## Kalgaros (Mar 27, 2016)

Oh man, that Photoshop tip is definetly some golden advice, thanks a (lot lot lot) lot for it, this is really going to help me out.
Well, I must say this was kindof what I was trying to do, to make the tones and the brushing rather subtle, but still seeable. Though I'm definetly going to rework this on a new canvas using your Photoshop tehnique, and maybe adding some more elements to it.
Thanks a lot for the advice


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## abt2k15 (Jan 9, 2016)

cheers m8 always happy to help if possible


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## Bushcraftonfire (Apr 22, 2015)

A tip for those who paint or use traditional media:

A piece red plastic held in front of your work (or your subject for that fact) will take out the color and allow you to see the tonal values in B&W. Try it.. it's amazing how it works. Anyway.. you can use this to get your tonal variations more accurately!

Hope It Helps


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## Susan Mulno (Apr 13, 2015)

Bushcraftonfire said:


> A tip for those who paint or use traditional media:
> 
> A piece red plastic held in front of your work (or your subject for that fact) will take out the color and allow you to see the tonal values in B&W. Try it.. it's amazing how it works. Anyway.. you can use this to get your tonal variations more accurately!
> 
> Hope It Helps


Interesting. ...can't wait to try it.


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## Kalgaros (Mar 27, 2016)

I'm guessing plexiglass, right?


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