Please critique my lame painting

117Lei

Err, here's what I have so far. I'm not particularly satisfied with it at the moment, and I'm getting kind of fed up/frustrated. What am I doing wrong?

Mykonos

awwww, don't depreciate your self its not that lame. Hmm, definitely could use some more brighter highlights on the rocks, if anything to help define your lightsource. Tree looks a bit to slanted, but that may be because of the trunk shape and overal position of the leaves. When I see such a tree slanted I automatically think its windy, but on yours, my thought process is halted by the contradicting brush strokes on the grass. This strictly opinion here, but I'd definitely take your brush and start making more strokes that that would line up, according my perception, the slanted position of the tree. Other than that, the painting as a whole, while decent, seems kinda boring and pointless to me. I would love to see some more dynamic elements carefully placed in. Perhaps a heavy wave splashing violently against some rocks. Perhaps you can add some birds as well, mabey even a bird watcher peeking out with his binoculars on top of that tree, and if he's not watching the birds than mabey you can make him naked and have him zooming on on more bikini clad chicks down by shore seconds below they are about to be engulfed by that violent wave i suggested early, but not before a suicide jumper I was gonna mention lands on top of them. And the bird watcher could be like, "wtf, mate?"

Heartlash

Compositionally, you could think of ways to make the image more interesting/challanging for yourself. The tree is near the edge of the cliff, but why not directly on its edge, perhaps with roots clinging to the side?

You should also consider widening your color range on each of the elements. As it stands it seems a bit flat. Try to patiently go through everything and give it more detail. What separates one rock from the one next to it? Are there cracks? jagged points? etc.

Also, I'd toy around with adding sometime to the bg. Nothing complex, just some diverse clouds to make the image more interesting as a whole.

It's a good start, so don't beat yourself up.

lilchingch0ng

calligraphic brushes

desperaterobots

It seems like there's a whole lot of nothing going on in this painting.The scene comes off like a set of layers.

LAYER ONE - CLIFF AND TREE
LAYER TWO - CLIFF IN BACKGROUND WITH WHITE 80%
LAYER THREE - ANOTHER CLIFF + WHITE 40%
LAYER FOUR - SKY GRADIENT

Also, the low horizon suggests that I'm looking up, so I should be looking at the underside of the trees branches, etc. Yet I can see the grass on top of the cliff. Confusing. Where is the viewer? Where is the sun? The tree trunk is in sillouhette indicating a back light, but its leaves appear to be lit from the front... Everything else is lit up beautifully?

Epi

Yeah, you definitely have an issue with perspective. The painting suggests the viewer is looking from on the beach or perhaps midway up the cliff height on an outcropping in the sea or somesuch. However, we can see the top of that beautiful grassy overhang off which I would like to dangle my feet.

The distanced cliffs and the beach seem to draw to directly to a "point of infinity." Perhaps the further cliffs should be more domineering.

I also agree with the tree being swept the wrong way and the excessive emptiness of the background. A vast open sky can be majestic, but this is not.

And, for real, this is pretty decent. I'd put it on my refrigerator.

teamquiggan

it seems like you have 2 horizons. one for the cliffs and one for the tree and grass on top of the cliffs.

117Lei

Alright, sorry if I came off a bit emo. I'm not, really. Its not like I spend every waking moment in anguish because I alienated everyone I love and can only assuage my inner anguish by cutting myself.

Anyway, here's my picture, 2.0.

Err, I mean...

I'm sorry its so boring. I'm not really sure what I can put in there. I'm doing this for a friend of a friend's (a person who has not responded to my notes for more input and stuff... (yes, notes. Lol deviantart, etc, etc)) senior project.

I'm seriously pushing it with that tree :P.

Heartlash

Getting better methinks. If you want to make it even more interesting try adding wind for a dynamic element. It will certainly make the tree more interesting.

edit:

Rays of sunlight may be good, too.

desperaterobots

That image immediately makes more sense in terms of perspective. Now your composition: it's shitty. It's cut in half horizontally -- thirds are usually more pleasing and/or interesting -- and for no obvious reason. This leads to a confused sense of what the fuck I'm supposed to be looking at. The tree? Then why is the rest of the canvas so full of stuff! Of course by stuff I mean nothing.

Remember, the eye generally reads from top left to bottom right, and you've got your only point of interest in the exact opposite spot. Right now my eye hits the tree, looks down to the rocks, then looks back up again, then back down, and then back up. I don't know where I'm supposed to be looking.

I get that the tree is high up, probably a little precarious and lonely. But this could be pushed further. Maybe if we saw more sky, or maybe if the cliff pushed even closer to the top of the frame? Maybe if the rock forms weren't huge blobs that looked solid and sturdy, and were sinewy and dangerous looking instead.

If it were me, I'd put a figure in to this composition, dangling its legs over the very edge of that cliff in a little red hooded blazer. I'd make the rest of the lighting match the tree (gloomy and dark) and it might develop some atmosphere. And then I'd try to render the ocean and rocks to match... hey, this isn't my painting.

I'd suggest making this piece a shitload darker, if it fits within your brief.

117Lei

Well, my brief was "Ocean cliff", so I guess it fits, lol.

Alright, I'll be back with another version.

EDIT:





Err, I know, no figure in this one, but I need to see what the people are supposed to look like first, I will update when I find out.

desperaterobots

You need to be bolder with your choices. Remember you can always delete stuff you don't like since you're working digitally. I just spend a few minutes doing a paint-over to demonstrate what I was trying to explain before. I hope it isn't bad form but I couldn't stop myself once I started!

First off, I've restricted my pallette to pretty much what you had in your rocks to begin with.

I've established some scale by putting a person in with the tree, and a tree in the distance.

Your lighting was very indirect so I threw in some clouds so that indirect light would make sense. If you're lighting with a something like the sun in a clear sky, you'd have to render your rocks and water with harsh shadows and highlights for it to actually make sense. I can't do that, so I avoided it. Plus it's time consuming.

Probably the most important change was to the composition.

I got rid of the receding-to-infinity cliffs and put in one long landform in the background. This solves the problem of your cliffs borking your perspective and it just looks more natural. I also tried to add some more realistic atmospheric effects (haze near the water etc) instead of 'receding into white fog', but I'm not good at environments so this is probably just as contrived.

Importantly this establishes some sense of flow to the composition. The eye naturally finds itself resting on the foreground tree and figure and then moving back and forth between the foreground tree and background tree. it's not perfect but its an improvement.

Also, to further establish the foreground tree as the dominant element I pushed it further to the top right of the frame to exaggerate the sense of height, and pushed the tree closer to the edge to exaggerate it's precarious position.

I cannot render clouds or oceans so excuse the obvious brushes, but I think at least there is something happening in these elements to justify the huge amount of space they take up. I added some highlights to the tree so it wasn't just a green blob. The shape of the tree and the light from behind it and the new highlights on the leaves serve to draw the viewers eye there.

Anyway, hope this helps.

dangerdoomdanger

I like what you did with the tree in the second one. I'd fuck with the clouds a bit more.

NightDragon

Take a look at this to make that cliff look a bit more interesting/realistic.

Try, also, to look up reference images to get your colors down. Right now, your colors seem very generic, and if they were paint, I'd describe them as being "straight from the tube". The water, for example, is SUPER blue. You may want to darken it up a bit, throw a few other blues in there (there are many colors for each object you're trying to paint!)...and lower the saturation. If you lowered the saturation on your treetop and maybe even the cliff a bit too, I think the colors would be a bit more accurate.

117Lei

Yeah, I realize that I have a lot of problem with colors and stuff, and I probably need to work majorly on that..

and straight out of the tube is actually very accurate. I really don't know what to use a lot of times, so I just choose one out of my swatches. That's probably bad.

Anyway, I did some stuff.





I'm not really satisfied with the big wave in the bottom left, and I don't like the clouds that much either.

Also, this is the first time I have used brushes with soft edges for a long, long time. I feel almost dirty for using them

Epi

It's the instant "fade into night" at the top that's bugging me now. And the clouds are too low.
I'm also having a little issue distinguishing if the nearer background waves are breaking on the cliff. There's not breakline or beach or anything. Just haze.

The waves could use some work but if you put this side by side with your original its pretty astonishing.
(And nice touch with the ruins in the back ground. Classy)

117Lei

ph00l

I would try painting in greyscale to get a better understanding of value and composition. I had painted a pic very similar to yours and found it infinitely easier to see what was wrong with it when I took out the color.

erisian pope

I'm not good at this painting / drawing thing, so take my comment with a ton of alt, but I wanted to pipe up and say the latest version is a bazillion times better than the original. Keep listening to the feedback as it seems to really be helping you.