Bodnant Gardens

This is a painting of Bodnant Cardens showing the well known Laburnum Arch. I’ve used acrylic on a prepared canvas ground.

I’ve sent the painting to 2 open exhibitions and a Ludlow Art Society Summer Exhibition. I haven’t found a buyer yet and have withdrawn it from sale. I’m looking to make some changes that I hope will make the painting more appealing.

Reply

“Thank you all for the helpful comments. I will try to incorporate them by making some changes to my painting. I will try downloading a jpg version of the painting into Procreate to experiment with some digital alterations.”
Kind regards, Bob,

As I cannot post a comment Bob, I am putting it here on your blog post.  Please delete it if you prefer it not to be seen.

I think the problem may be that it is a difficult subject to create a painting from!  It works fairly well as a photo but not so well as a painting.  

When I look at the painting I am unsure what the main subject is and where the focal point is.  The eye is always drawn to people, so I look first at the group on the right, one with very light trousers, but my eye is distracted by the light yellow above and I find this uncomfortable as I keep flicking back and forth.  

I have created my version of a very quick "notan" of your painting, bear in mind that I am using only three values, your painting has more,  here it is:

Compare this with an Alamy stock photo of the same laburnum arch and the "notan "of it:

The structure (pattern) of the design seems to work better, for me at least.  So Lesley is right that attention to the scale and tone in the arch would indeed help.  Personally, I would also increase the darker tone in the sides and foreground and probably lose the first two groups of people thereby drawing the eye to one focal point. Jean

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