Okay. I got up off my lazy butt and finally posted this (thanks for the motivation Brendan). So here's the deal. I've been commissioned by a girl to do a landscape tryptic for her to hang in her apartment. It's a purely decorative, fine art type thing. The finished pieces will be 16" x 20" each. She wants strictly landscape with no animals or man-made structures. The mood/atmosphere should be calming, peaceful, relaxing, etc. and the color scheme is to be teal, robin's egg blue, browns and creams (so non-representative color). She didn't really know what type of landscape she wanted or what area of the world she would prefer, so I have total freedom as far as that goes.
The first piece was inspired by some photos I took in Alaska of rocks and cliffs coming out of the ocean, so it's technically a seascape? I imagine I'll have fun with the rock formations and different textures of moss and scrub if I take this one to finish. I also think that the twisty pine trees will be interesting to draw.
The second sketch is an African landscape with a cool baobab tree as the focal point in the foreground and some interesting rock formations/ cliffs in the background. The patterned border stuff is a giraffe pattern. The girl that this is for mentioned that she loves giraffes and giraffe patterned things and suggested that she might like to incorporate that into the pictures somehow. This was my solution. Anyway, I think I'm gonna try and make the baobab tree "twistier" and have it break up the space in a more interesting way (play with positive and negative shapes) so that is seems more dynamic and not so static and "lump-like" in the foreground.
So there they are. I'm sending them to the girl to get her opinions and see which direction she would like to go in, but I need your thoughts too! Any critiques, ideas or suggestions will be welcome as always. I miss and love you all and I WILL be posting some more random stuff tomorrow :)
No animals? Seriously? How boring! Luckily, you are really good with landscapes and scenery though, so you will rock her socks clean off regardless.
ReplyDeleteI have two suggestions. First, consider having some sort of pattern-y border in the Alaska one for the sake of consistency. Second, I really agree with your sentiment about making the tree in the Africa piece twistier.
I would also suggest making the tree more gnarled and knotted and have it maybe lean across the center panel instead of it just being straight up and down. You could have the roots start in the bottom corner (slightly breaking into the left panel) and the branches peaking at the top corner (breaking into the right panel). That way it would tie together all three panels as opposed to being isolated in the middle.
I see the tree as being a a little bit Whomping Willow in Chamber of Secrets mixed with the Whomping Willow in Prisoner of Azkaban and some of the Tree of Life from Animal Kingdom thrown in for good measure. Whatever you do, do NOT draw inspiration from the Boobie Tree from The Last Unicorn.
. . . OK, that was unnecessary. I just really wanted to post that video. You gonna use your trademark graphite/watercolor/ink/colored pencil technique for the finish?
yeah. I'm planning on using my normal process/media and I completely agree with you about the tree. Thanks for the input! I'm not gonna add a boarder to the Alaska piece because the girl was really only interested in incorporating the giraffe pattern and it doesn't mesh with the alaskan seascape. Plus I'm only taking one to finish, so there won't be consistency issues.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the prevailing tree sentiment. Perhaps include two or three small distant similar trees? Or even some other fore/middle ground element? That tree just kinda sticks out in its loneliness. I am personally a bit more drawn to the first one, your Alaska landscape. The rocks and trees have a nice repetition, and the composition is strong. And I think the reflections in the water will look great in your mixed media style.
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