Friday, September 20, 2013

Girl Fishing

Diane Mannion, Girl Fishing, 8x10" oil on linen

Tweeking Plein Air

A few notes about tweeking plein air paintings back in the studio.  There's something fresh about studies done on location and usually I like to leave them as they are.  But in the end, it's what makes a good painting that's important.  Therefore, I attempted to improve one back in the studio.

This morning I took a look at the first painting I did yesterday and decided to change it.  It's a dangerous operation but had to be done.  The orange beach bag in the foreground screamed, "Take me out!"  And so I did.  

Here's the first version and the tweeked one:
Diane Mannion, Morning View Tweeked, 8x10" oil on linen

Took out orange beach bag, detailed forground figure, faded other figures into background, fiddled with sun-struck palm on left, and added a few more lights in the foliage.  Lightened some of the shadows.  

Does it look any better?  What do you think?


Girl Fishing is the second plein air painting I did yesterday and I'm quite pleased with it.  Softened a few spots in the background this morning, but other than that it's the way it was created at the beach.


8 comments:

Nan Burger said...

Great work! You did the right thing!!! :). It looks beautiful

Lori Quarton said...

Looks much better! Very nice....

Sandy said...

Love "Girl Fishing on Beach". Nice sense of light and freshness to it.

Diane Mannion said...

Thank you, Nan. As an artist I keep rethinking things. I should paint it and move onto the next... but could not stand that beach bag!

Diane Mannion said...

Lori, thanks! It's a relief to know I didn't ruin it completely.

Diane Mannion said...

Thank you so much, Sandy. I think I was warmed up after painting Morning View and I like Girl Fishing better. But my husband likes the third painting I did that day which will be posted tomorrow... that one only took thirty minutes or so and it might be the best.

carol edan said...

Love the tweaked version... especially love the girl fishing!!! I know how that simplicity is so hard to achieve!!!

Diane Mannion said...

Thank you, Carol! The faster I paint the better I like the results. As long as I let myself believe it's just a quick study and not a polished work of art. Next time painting on location I'm bringing a timer.