Any and all suggestions/criticism are welcome! It’s a WIP.
no changes needed, you’re good go for it.
Agreed. I would hang this up in my house.
Hello friend. Do you plan to paint this one with acrylics like your last piece? Liquid acrylics or a thicker medium? Please post the painting, if you decide you like it! Here’s a few thoughts for the sketch:
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Love the proportions, overall composition of the field, and the layered smoke concept.
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The color scheme is interesting. How did you decide on the colour gradients for each smoke section? My immediate impression is there’s slightly too much variation in smoke colour; I count at least 11 shades and that makes it harder for my eye to follow the movement of smoke from centre-front to upper-left in the frame. I would consider reducing the total variety of colours, but keep the scheme/combo: it is good!
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I would consider painting the moon with its predominant color and devote only 1/3 or less of the surface to smoke layers. The current smoke lines, which are almost vertical/horizontal, seem forced.
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Lighten the smoke layers in the smoke trail coming from the far-right house; there are a few dark purple layers near the right-side edge of the piece; if you make them more orange/salmon/red, you encourage a viewer’s eye to wind from center-to-right-to-left in a motion similar to how smoke rises in the air (you’ve already represented that movement with the outlines).
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Darken the mid-gray color in the hinterland, as well as the two rings, of your settlement. From the viewer’s perspective – assuming this is a night scene – those areas would be shrouded in darkness, but as a visual technique I think it would also help to focus the viewer’s eye (bottom to top) on the houses, then smoke, and finally the moon. If those gradients represent a descending elevation, just make them progressively darker; an interesting twist is for the settlement to sit in a crater (i.e., ascending elevation), in which case you could tint the small rings orange/red, to reflect the glow of the coloured smoke.
Hey! Thanks for the suggestions. To answer your medium question, it’s thick acrylics on a 36"x48" canvas. I’ve begun some of the larger sections, but I think I’ll run with your idea about darkening the ground to reflect the night/early morning lighting. That’s a really good point. I haven’t started that area at all, so it’s pretty easy to switch up colours there.
There WAS a plan as to which colours would represent how many layers of smoke there were. That plan was tossed out the window somewhere along the way, and I may have very well gotten carried away with the number of shades/hues. I’ll look at my pallete and see if I can trim the fat.
Elevation- this one is inspired by an ice fishing village that sets up nearby every winter, which is why there is a ring like that (ice is shoveled off to allow people to set up their shacks, and then people create this distinct array of lines surrounding the area to tell people how far onto the ice they can go safely.)
Very interesting, thanks for the reply. Looking forward to the finished work!
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