Ah, That's Better

"Twilight Gathering_State 2"___24 x 24 Oil on linen__sent to AZ for Cowgirl Up! March 27-29

Refer to yesterday's post to compare this one with the first state. http://www.vvaughan.blogspot.com THANK YOU to all you art critics who told me what you thought was my reason for saying it was not a good painting...some of you came up with stuff that looked pretty good to me! haha!!! Be careful what you ask for, right?...

Seriously, a few of you were DEAD RIGHT. I had the little house on the lower right, with great light and shadows, but it was distracting to the overall composition...BUT IT WAS SO COOL! Still, what matters is COMPOSITION, and how "comfortable" the eye is, looking at your painting. My desire was to put ALL THE GOODIES into one painting, but my eye could not rest anywhere...that's bad! Not only were the house and light distracting, but the cloud above had some hard lines in there that also drew the eye and HELD IT there...not good....An artist wants the viewer to look and be led through the painting in such a way that they never want to leave. If folks feel uncomfortable looking at the art, they will leave, FAST!...SO....I will put that little house into another painting some day, but for now, it remains under another layer of paint. The area is too dark in this shot, but there are some nice cows and warm dark greens on the lower right now. Click on the image and adjust the values in photoshop if you want to see them....This painting humbled me, but I hope it will help some of you artists out there!...Come to one of my workshops if you can! We talk about all this stuff in depth!

Apr. 18... Rockport, TX (1 day)

April 27 - 30... Gadsden, ALABAMA

May 30 ...Waxahachie, TX (1 day)...almost FULL

June 5-7... Fredericksburg, TX (Painting Fast - every day, and what to do with all those paintings!)

Fall ...in New Orleans (with EATING in our off hours)