HOW TO MAKE A PAINTING THAT SELLS - Ms Chicken Goes to the Beach - GOLDEN SPRAY - FREE GIFT

GOLDEN SPRAY
Orange and Umber Series
This is my auction painting on Daily Paintworks today. It is much brighter in real life, being mainly white, cream, cadmium orange, raw umber and gold. Part of a series of 5 Orange and Umber paintings. It would absolutely spectacular in a fashionable gold frame. If you would like to purchase the whole series, contact me and I will send you an invoice with the series discount and combined shipping.


HOW TO MAKE A PAINTING THAT SELLS

QUOTE OF THE DAY - "Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep" Scott Adams

So today I started a review of 2013. I know there are some paintings I want to tweek, which I will start playing with. This is one of the hardest things for an Artist to do. It involves self critique and destroying work into which you have put a lot of time. That can be painful, It doesn't have to be though, because once you take the plunge a whole new shiny vision starts to emerge.

Some artists completely eradicate their work by brushing off (for pastel artists) to getting out the gesso and painting over the canvas (oil and acrylic artists). Others study the good and bad points of their work and adjust. When a painting has serious compsitional flaws, it may be easier to paint over it, but sometimes a small adjustment makes a painting sing.

Cat # 13100 Spring Beach

Original Challenge Photo by Evhe

Here is an example, SPRING BEACH.

This painting was a challenge entry, painted from the photo of another artist and originally titled Spring Beach. I loved this photo because of the simple design and I was excited to paint it. When acrylic paint is wet is has a much more lively look, much like oil paint, but sometimes, as it dries it darkens and the colours change and some of that edge goes missing. This is the hardest thing to master as an acrylic artist, predicting how much the colour will change. I think that may be what happened in this painting.

On reflection, I liked the simplicity of the piece, but it seemed too lonely. If you look at the original photo, there was a fence in the foreground, which I had elected to eliminate to emphasize a more natural look. I think the painting would have been better if the fence was left in, but I would have moved the upright post on the right a little towards center to stop the eye traveling off the side of the painting.

Cat # 13177 Ms Chicken goes to the beach

However, another opportunity came along .... Ms Chicken came to visit me. She saw the painting and loved the emptiness. She insisted I take her to a beach like that, so we had a day in Bournemouth and Poole and I did some sketches of her on the beach. When we got home she asked if I would paint her into the scene, which I did and put it on her travel website. Not only did this make Ms Chicken happy, but the painting sold soon after.

So it just goes to show that one simple change could be all a painting needs to make it fly off the wall.

These images are copyright protected by law and the original is sold. However prints are available here.

Cat # 13100 Spring Beach by Sea Dean - 6" x 8" Signed Print $29

Cat # 13177 Ms Chicken goes to the beach by Sea Dean 6" x 8" Signed Print $29