I like that little boaty watercolor. It’s a lot looser than those landscapes you posted, and far more interesting than your source photograph.
ok, then. Now, for the girl to give it a touch of class, you need to work on her posture. She is showing a huge hunch on her back that says nothing about class.
As it is, the focus is a lot more on the girl than on the carrousel. You could even play further on it by making the crowd tighter and making the observer a part of the crowd.
If it is the carrousel you want to showcase, showing one horse is not enough. You need to bring the “circularity” of it by showing other horses going in a different direction. If you remove the lady in pink, that should be enough, but you will need to hunt for pictures to have a model of the horse going away.
Removing the lady in pink, though, thins the crowd a lot and you lose the idea of the observer peeking through it. That would make it a bit awkward in the sense of “why am I standing here between these two guys if there is so much room right there?”
Just some thoughts.
Oh, I forgot. I agree 100% with this.
Thanks, both of you. I almost sold it. I did sell the other one.
FWIW, I think the lady in pink is actually a child. And the girl in the lower left looks like a Klingon. :dubious:
One thing I like about looking through the crowd is that it makes it sort of a tunnel composition.
Please try not to laugh at this drawing. I already stated my standard disclaimer that I’m poor at human anatomy, and this is my first attempt at equine anatomy.
The important thing here is the big shapes, at how light is divided from dark.
I like how there is a mass of lights and mediums cutting a swath from lower left to upper right. What I don’t like is how it orphans the large dark mass. I’d like to connect it up more, but there is still an interesting overall dark shape.
I also don’t like how the large light shape in the lower left leads directly to the focal point. It kind of shouts “Well, here we are already. We’re done. What’s for lunch?” I’m thinking that another humanoid shape or some interesting wrinkles in the shirt might break it up a bit more and slow down the eye.
I think that’s a quite competent drawing. Very complete and well done.
But it doesn’t evoke cotton candy for me - I see zombies looking for lunch. 
Which is fine, as subject matter, but I know that’s not what you’re aiming for.
I showed your source photo to my Mom (who’s also an artist) and she remarked that all the tension is in those two men. There’s no tension to the girl on the horse. Her form needs to be interacting with something, in some way. I think that’s your problem.
Okay so I’m the only artist who is intrigued by the woman at the lower edge who is the only person in the shot NOT focused on the carousel? We do not see a child in her arms. Why is she there? What has captured her attention so clearly so as to draw her eye around to the left?
Why is she so prominently in our way, and making us wonder who she is and why she’s not a part of the meis en scene?
Cartooniverse
I can only take a guess, but I’m thinking that she’s thinking
“Oooh, hot guy!”
“Where’s mom? I need money so me and Nicole can go see The Simpsons Movie.”
“Beth, hurry uuuuuuuuuuup!”
fessie, thanks for the compliment on the drawing. I’ve been trying to improve.
So what’s all this about creating tension? In all of my art books I haven’t read anything about that. Are we talking about tension between objects, as in the two men, or tension between shapes, as in a low-value shirt shape and another low-value shirt shape??
I’m thinking about removing the foreground crowd altogether. That way I can stress the octagonal shape of the column, and give the panels different values. The high value of the left part, in shadow, can merge with the high value of the horse, then shadowed figures off to the right, thus engaging all sides of the painting with one large dark shape.
I’m recalling that the oval object behind the girl is a mirror. There are all sorts of possibilities for that!
tdn,
your posted pieces are quite good. The photo in the OP is not the right photo to paint from, from what I see. To me, it’s rather static, because everyone is not facing the camera/painter/viewpoint. The lighting and movement were attracting, and the sense of crowd is as well. It would have been perfect if the gal on the carousel horse had turned her face toward the onlookers, allowing a connect with the viewer. Was this what you were going for?
I’m a photographer, and so much of it is in the waiting. You see the perfect situation, subject, and lighting, and, then, have to be prepared to wait for that perfect moment. If I were into that space of the photo at the carousel, with the thought of onlookers gazing at a lass passing by on a carousel horse, I’d probably shoot a whole roll of film with that in mind, hoping that she’d give an onward glance to the camera, or at least a profile, to contrast with the onlookers static position. I would wait a good long time for that perfect shot, honing it in the viewfinder and with whatever was happening.
With photography, that’s the work it takes, but, in using photography to make a painting sans setting up your easel and getting the whole picture thattaway, it still requires some technique. Does this help at all?
I’ve got to ‘third’ the boaty watercolor. I intended to just lurk in this thread, but that work caught my attention enough to mention it.
That girl is not 8–I’d say she was 12 at least. She is very tall and has that middle school look about her.
I am also intrigued by the brunette in the foreground. I am also very slightly creeped out by the guys-who seem to be staring at the girl, who is looking away.
I think it’s her dress that is ruining the line of her back–or she has health problems!
I don’t see this as a watercolor at all–in a weird way it reminds me of that Renoir that the glass man obsessively painted in the movie Amelie. I like the crowd of people, jammed in and watching the carousel. I would make the child younger than she is (unless you want a Wyeth-esque underlying creepiness), and change her clothes. There is so much energy in the lights, the movement, the crowd–watercolor is too staid and restful to do the pic justice, IMO.
It would look good in acrylics or pastels, IMO, but I’m no artist. I prefer your quick drawing to the actual photo.
Honestly, I agree with your above assessments re: composition, and the photo is a compositional and technical mess. I would start with better source material rather than stressing out over how to make this particular photo work as a painting. Then again, if you have a good imagination and talent, I suppose you could make something of it, but personally I don’t see anything in it.
Y’know, I looked in the indexes of my art books and didn’t see that term either. But I knew exactly what she meant.
Take a look at Sargent’s Madame X, the way that her hand twists on the table, the set of her shoulders – something’s happening. She’s not just standing there passively, it looks like she’s getting ready to move.
Michelangelo’s David is probably the best example of it ever. I’ve seen that one in person, it really looks like he’s about to act.
(but, OK, to get real about it - you don’t have to be one of the Greatest Artists Who Ever Lived to use this principle effectively)
Here’s another one from Sargent, Teddy Roosevelt. It’s interesting in this one, there’s not much twist to his form (which is how people often create tension in life drawing, it’s a popular trick) (the other trick is to have them put all their weight on one foot) but the piece is dynamic anyway. The tension is created via the negative space, aka the play between the subject and the background. The background is full of movement, those strokes and the light gradation - meanwhile, old TR is solid black and standing stock-still.
You know how a good comic has a superb sense of timing, how they know when and how to wait before delivering the punch line? Or, have you heard the saying “Music isn’t the notes, it’s the pauses between them”? THAT is “tension”. It’s the play between what is and what isn’t; it’s anticipation; it’s a sense that something is going on beneath the surface.
The two men in your picture look (to me) to be full of tension - their weight is off-balance, they’re twisting, and they’re both looking at the girl on the horse. You don’t HAVE to make use of tension in order to have a successful piece (there as many ways of creating a good painting as there are good paintings), but if it’s present in the work, it’s going to draw people’s attention.
In addition to brightening the horse (I’d make it pink and change her dress to white), I would alter the way the members of the foreground crowd are facing so that all their eye-lines point at the girl riding by finding reference photos of a people standing about how you want it, then replace those with the figure in the original photo.
I actually like the blur, although in a painting I’d use an impressionist feel instead of a simple blur.
Alternately, you could change it completely, with none of the foreground figures looking at the girl. Either their face or profile, give each individual a negative expression like anger or boredom. Contrast that with the joyous, happy girl riding the carousel that none of them even notice. To pull off the emotions you’d need to be more realistic.
Either way, you want to see joy in the posture and/or face or the girl.
I also keep thinking this could be perfect for Saurat.
Elelle, I truly love the way your mind works. I too am a photographer and a student of Atget ( speaking of Atget… ) and yet, I also adore the sudden moment. I’ve blown a lot of rolls waiting for that Definitive Moment- but I’ve also gotten lucky. There are shot I’ve got in the portfolio that were one-offs, or at best one of three. Don’t you love that- you are in a situation, with the eyepiece to your eye and something happens and you go for it, feeling you’ve likely got it? Love that about shooting in crowds or public events. A combination of light, angles, expressions, energies.
I see that photo and I see a lot of potential. I LOVE the woman low right with the hard gaze. She breaks the rules. Everything else is nicely centered, two men, holding toddlers, eyes gazing in to girl in center, etc. One can peel this apart like an onion.
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Paint the entire image. Who is this woman? Why is she not mesmerized by the lovely child in center? The men hold babies- atypical in terms of symbolism, since it is the Mother who usually holds the child. LOVE that. Why is she, the largest human- and a woman- not also holding a child? What is she, who is she?
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Ditch the foreground woman. Make it more classically composed, as the rest of it really is. Eyes cast towards the child. A child on a horse but not a real horse. What is reality?
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Leave the men and toddlers out and make it about a child aflight, riding the carousel and in her mind’s eye she is ripping across the countryside, hair flying, dress rippling in the wind.
There’s a lot there.
Wow, so many responses! It’s like a Pit pile-on, only nice. I’ll try to answer every response over the course of the day.
I’ll start out by saying that there really is nothing wrong with the girl’s back or posture. It’s perfectly lovely, and healthy. Hey, it’s just like my back! But I would never wear anything so tarty. Not without a good wax job, anyway.
elelle, thanks for the compliments.
I realize that the photo was taken in sub-optimal conditions. I went in there hoping to capture the essence of the place. Unfortunately, I succeeded. The essence of the place is not so much charming as claustrophobic. I walked in, and immediately wanted to walk out again. I tried to use my awesome mind powers to make the big hulking men to move out of the way, but instead did a quick point, shoot, and get the fuck out of there.
I might have to wait until next year to try this again. Maybe if I go when the place first opens up, I won’t have to contend with so many crushing, sweaty zombies.
…grumbling… one persons crushing sweaty zombies is another persons fantastic foreground…
I’m going to answer this one out of order, because it’s a fresh post and still smells of wet electrons.
IIRC, the reason that this “woman” is not holding a baby is that she is just a child herself. She seemed to be maybe 13 or 14. And she wasn’t mesmerized by horse girl probably because she couldn’t through the huge lumbering zombie in front of her. Hey, I’m 6’1" and I had a hard time seeing through the crowd.
I love that you wrote this. You’ve gotten away from “Is this good?” and are looking at what’s there!