From The West - Makeover Monday!

From The West

(after)

30 x 30"

oil on canvas

© Nicki Ault, 2018

available

I struggled with whether or not I should tweak this one. I actually quite love the original, but there was always something small niggling at me. In the end, after a good discussion with a friend, it boiled down to the ground. There was nothing about the sky I wanted to alter, but we concluded that somehow the bright colour of the grass didn't match the overall mood created by the clouds. It's a quirky piece to be sure, with the odd composition of the clouds coming in from the left, but that is a good chunk of what I love about this painting- it's a bit weird. Anyway, I ended up darkening and dulling down the value and chroma of the green. I also subdued the distant strip of yellow and made is less uniform. I think that really pushed the horizon back. I added depth (highlights and shadows) to the grouping of trees and broke up the straight line at their base. I also added more small and vertical brushstrokes in the foreground to help build more depth. It's hard to see in the "after" photo, but I added some deep blues and purples to help connect the ground to the colours in the sky.

From The West

(before)

30 x 30"

oil on canvas

© Nicki Ault, 2016

These painting makeovers have been a huge learning experience. This is the first one that I was really quite hesitant to do, but I am glad I decided to go for it even though the transformation was not a very dramatic. 

On a side note, I just tried to get to the studio and yikes!!! We had, I would say, about eight inches or more of snow over the weekend and the roads are a nightmare with people stuck everywhere and all of the street parking deep under the white stuff. I drove around trying to find a place to park where I felt confident I could drive back out, but gave up and just came home. I guess it is computer work and cleaning for the day!