Thursday, July 30, 2009

Editing Confusion


Just returned from the always fun Easton Plein Air event out in Maryland. Above is one of my entries for the competition, “The Mildred Belle”, a 9x16 painting of a historic Chesapeake Bay “Buy Boat” that caught my eye on this overcast morning during the event. This boat was used as a middle-man for oyster and crab fishermen to bring their catch to market in the early 1950s.

I was drawn to the wonderful cool whites against the gray blue water and was interested in seeing if I could capture that effect. The trick was eliminating all of the confusing background that competed with the boat itself. I’ve attached my photo of the scene so you can see what was omitted. (This piece was painted entirely in plein air and my photo was only for documentation.) Good editing is always needed in any painting, but I had to be much more inventive for this one. The large lighthouse that was behind the boat was virtually the same color, limiting my impact of whites to contrast the boat. I deleted that entirely and used the red building behind it as a better shape. Its deeper rust color helped that small white piece of the bow to pop. I had to walk around the lighthouse, catch a glimpse of the red structure, then painted that in loosely from memory. It was the same on the left side of the scene with the other large boats directly behind. I deleted those too, but needed something in the distance to suggest the harbor, so I painted the two distant boats from a couple that were much farther to the left. I continued the green tree mass behind everything for added simplicity. Now I had a quieter, complementary background to support my main interest. I painted the Belle next but further omitted small, unsightly items such as the orange cooler and aft canopy, plus a few ropes and other items that were unnecessary. I added the American flag on the back and few more rust streaks, but pretty much stayed true to the ship.

The result was this simple portrait instead of a confusing mess of shapes. If we can’t see the forest for the trees, sometimes a beautiful scene can be overlooked. This was one time I didn’t mind that the sun never appeared. Enjoy!

8 comments:

  1. Amazing that you can pull off a strong painting on an overcast day. And with all the editing you did, the final version looks totally believable. Beautiful!

    Knowing when and how much to edit is something I’m still learning. Hopefully, with a lot of brush mileage I’ll improve.

    Welcome back!

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  2. great painting and great post: being in scotland the land of the overcast you have given me some ideas of how to make such conditions work to your advantage. and talking through your choices to reinvent the scene is so useful. thanks. r.

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  3. Lovely painting and very interesting description of your process.

    Thanks!!

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  4. Hi All
    Thanks for your comments. To note: personally, I don't have a preference for gray days or sunny days. I just try to choose a subject that works best in the conditions presented. If you look at Richard Schmid's work, none of his paintings are on sunny days and they're all masterpieces! This just reminds me that good drawing, composition and values are the key ... plus lots of editing! Greg

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  5. What a great result and post. Thanks for running us through your thought process!

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  6. Greg, very nice. How do you get in some of your shows? I always here about them too late to enter. Anway, keep up the good work.

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  7. Great painting and a good example of editing. Not only leaving things out, but moving things around to suit your needs.

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  8. All your posts are very well written and thought out. I especially want to thank you for including the photo of the scene you were looking at and leading us through your thought process in editing the scene for the painting. I'd like to see more reference photos in your posts when you discuss editing the scene.

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