Amazing response to my latest painting

Wow…. I am bowled over by the number of people who have liked my latest painting. I put it on my own Facebook page and wasn’t surprised that friends liked it. After all, friends are there to support and encourage each other.

But I also put it on two artist Facebook groups. One of these is for those who are learning to draw via an Udemy online course that I started and haven’t yet finished (must get back to it). The talent on that site is variable. There are some amazingly talented and brilliant people as well as those who are just starting out and getting to grips with the basics (and I count myself amongst them). I have had 317 reactions: 216 Likes, 62 Loves, 36 wows and 3 lols. 12 people took the time to write a comment.

The other group is run by a professional artist and populated by professional and amateurs alike. Overall the standard of work posted on there is excellent and to my eye looks professional. I got 112 responses: 86 likes, 22 loves and 4 wows. 12 people also took the time to write a comment.

Even now, a few days later, people are still responding on both sites.

So I feel very encouraged to continue and so glad I went on Tuesday night. I nearly didn’t go as I was tired and not in the mood. But I only had a few things to do to the painting to finish it and when my beloved encouraged me to go….. he said if I didn’t go I might as well pack up the group, which is a fair comment to make. So I made the effort, and as I said, was very glad.

The painting was done from a photo taken on holiday.

This is how the painting progressed. I started by prepping the canvas with yellow ocre to give a good base. You can see it on the first photo I took. I then blocked in the main features, deciding that the far waterfall should come closer than it was on the photo that I had taken on holiday. I had the photo on my ipad and zoomed in till I got what I thought would make a good picture.

The next stage was filling in details and getting the rocks in place.

I wasn’t happy with the trees nor the rocks and I wanted the water to be a brighter orange/brown. The water is really bright brown in real life.

I had some help at art group to improve the perspective. The art teacher who attends and offers supportive comments correctly pointed out that I had some water flowing upwards! So he helped me correct that as well as showing me how to do the water in between the falls. And a friend at the group showed me the technique for getting the leaves right. Without their help i would not have managed to get the painting as good as it was.

As you can see, the differences between the 3rd photo and the final one (at the top of my blog) are very few. I improved the water and added some greenery on the left side.

I am grateful for the encouragement and will get this picture, and another with similar colours of an arch in a wall, framed. I will perhaps write about that one another time. They will look good on the living room wall.