I absolutely want honest, hard criticism on my paintings. You cannot hurt my feelings! Constructive criticism has helped me produce some photographs I never could have
achieved on my own!.
Took about three hours. First thing I learned is I need to wear my house painting clothes LOL, not my new Christmas sweater. I'm happy with the sky, the water, the misty effect in the distant trees, the reflections, and the deciduous tree is not TOO shabby.
Pines are not bad, but too uniform--they look like giant, well groomed Christmas trees. The Island looks a bit tilted. The island shoreline is not very convincing--looks like ice. The bushes in the foreground look more like under-sea corals LOL. I finally realized Bob thins bush/highlight paint with Magic White; his son uses paint thinner. Will practice bushes this week! I promise to do better--with yall's help!
Practice is the key word, we ALL have to go through that, more or less.
Concerning the use of paint thinner, Steve, but also Bob, use it to thin the paint (thin paint sticks on thick paint) and occassionally, they even use liquid clear for that purpose, although you need to be very careful there since that the clear heavily reacts with paint thinner! Never combine those unless intended!
Personally, I try on the highlights and immediately check if it sticks well on the canvas. If so, I continue and if not, I use either a little paint thinner or some liquid white (if I want to brighten the color up).
Good luck on your next endeavours!
Great start! Nice distance through the use of lighter blue and darker blue on the distant forest. Good blending in the sky. For the first time - your evergreens are awesome! Reflections in the water look great!
About water lines, no matter what you do you need to hold your knife perfectly horizontal to make lines parallel to the lower edge of canvas and this will sit your water in the painting. It seems that photo might have been taken at angle and horizon line in fact is horizontal.
Only these 2 little things that would catch attention that look bothering on the photo. The rest is very good for the first Bob Ross ever!
I also like your evergreens and the highlits on them. And the reflections are great.
I finally learned how to do bushes watching s29 ep. 13, around minute 20, where Bob explains exactly what you have to be careful with. You have to load a lot of paint into the brush pulling it in one direction so that the brush becomes rounded on the bottom, then you turn the brush so that the rounded part goes to the top, and then you just gently tuch it to the canvas and push upwards. You have to have enough paint in the brush and it has to be thin enough so that it sticks to the canvas without pushing too hard.
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Hello Chaz. A great first attempt. Your background trees are layered well - the darkest layer of them are in the mid-ground and would benefit from a little added detail, just a bit as they are closer to the viewer than the distant layers and it will help push them even further back. Your stones, I can see you have double loaded a filbert, the colours need to be bit a more defined so they stand out more, load both sides of the brush well with dark colour and a single stroke of light colour to one side. It looks like you've painted it with the flat side of the brush so your colours have mixed together. Instead, hold your brush so that the bristles are horizontal with the light paint on the top, now the narrow side of the brush touches the canvas, that way you'll create a dark stone with highlight on the top side. This makes great smooth looking stones, if you want rocks with texture on them try the knife, but that's another story. My knife and I hate each other. Good luck.
I saw an episode of "your brush with nature" with Heiner Hertling, and he talks about making pine trees lopsided and imperfect to make the look real. He also uses downward brush strokes on them and spaces out his branches. Different technique than Bob's back and forth method, but IMO a little more effective.
Sunnylady, you pointed out something I didn't notice. I did take the photo at an angle, so the water (and the island) look very tilted. In reality, they are tilted somewhat, but not as bad as the photo shows. I do need to make them even straighter than they are in the actual painting, as they really jump out even when a little bit off. Thanks for those who pointed it out.
Umaggan--I had a REAL HARD TIME with the bushes, even after practicing a lot beforehand. Don't like mine at all. I've done a few more painting sinxe, and still am not satisfied. I will re-watch the video you suggested.
TLP--I agree with the technique on the stones. Didn't like mine. I have used the technique you mentioned creating vertical mud banks on lakes and it looks realistic. Need to keep the double-loaded colors separate. Ditto on the knife LOL. Bob made it look a lot easier than it is!
RKGal -- I LOVE my evergreens--in the painting but not in real life LOL. They look TOO perfect. Like pruned Christmas trees. I spend a lot of time in the outdoors, and evergreens are usually more ragged. I'm not nuts about the Z technique that Bob uses, and will look up HH's techniques.
Thanks for all the comments. Very much appreciated. What I was satisfied with:
Sky
Reflections
Background
Evergreens (sort of--see above comment)
Y'alls help!!
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Try to keep your water lines straight. I think the mist at the base of your mountain looks great!!