USE THIS LITTLE KNOWN TRICK TO IMPROVE YOUR PAINTINGS - LITTLE NAUTI II

12" x 6" Wrap Canvas - After quartering

LITTLE NAUTI II

LITTLE NAUTI - Original

One of my good cyber friends is Julie Ford Oliver, a superb artist with a solid Art School background and the inventor of fracturing. Although Julie is an oil painter, I love to read her informative blogs and when I read this one it seemed important to share.

SOLVING DESIGN ISSUES

One of the tips I use frequently (perhaps from an earlier blog of Julie's) is to keep each corner of a painting different. Because I have an engineers love of precision, uniformity often creeps into my work, so checking the corners has been a very useful trick. However, I have never heard of the trick Julie refers to in this blog and I love her illustrations. It all makes complete sense. Thanks Julie.

So I went straight to the pile I've set aside to rework and tested it out. Check out the original painting and the one based on the quartering technique at the top of the blog. 

In the first version I wanted to emphasize a diagonal composition to add interest to a very centered painting. After reading the blog I noticed that each pair of diagonal corners were too similar, which made for a boring composition. First I added different colour combinations to each corner and then a Seagull and ripples to add interest and mix up the composition. I think this lead to a much more lively painting. What do you think?

Please leave a comment if blogs like this are helpful to you as an artist and/or art buyer. If you would like to share a painting where you have used this technique, I'd be happy to add it to my blog. Just contact me by email.