Taking a Flat Painting to a Finished Painting

My Painting Looks Flat!!!

You've been working on a painting and you think you're done,

(how do you ever know we're done?)

but it looks flat.

What's the problem?

Here's my example.

My husband gave me a beautiful bouquet of flowers for our 48th anniversary and of course, you know I had to paint them.
I did and I was relatively happy with the painting.

I didn't sign it though which usually means changes are on the horizon.  

The next day I was looking at it deciding if I was really done or not, and I saw it.

There was no distance between that big beautiful stargazer lily and the vase.

What to do - What to do?

I took some of the color I used for the vase and added its complement, the color opposite it on the color wheel.  I added some white and could have added more if I felt it was still too dark.
Then I made the shadow between the lily and the vase. 

 BOOM!

Much Better.

However, looking at the petals of the lily, I realized there was room for improvement, especially with the one in front.

It also looked flat, so I took the color of the lily and aded a tiny, I really mean tiny, bit of dioxazine purple to it to darken the center and give it a deeper feel.

On the petal to the right of that, I added a shadow where the petal is turning on the top, and I darkened the other petals a little to make the center pop.  

I also darkened up the leaves under the lily as they would be in shadow also.

Such small changes made a 

huge difference in this painting.

If you're not certain if you're done,

it's always a good idea to leave it sit for a day or 2 and come back to it.  

Look it over and see if anything speaks to you.

It was just a few strokes that gave this painting the zing I was looking for.

It took less than 5 minutes once I stopped looking at the parts and began looking at the whole painting.

Just in case you were wondering...

Yes.

I signed it. 

And it's available.

Anniversary Flowers

10" x 8" canvas panel, unframed

$50 + shipping

Grab my free eBook on 3 That Will Improve Your Art.  

If you've always wanted to learn to paint,

 but life got in the way,

join my free Facebook group,

Bucket List Artists.

Click HERE to join.  

Ask to join and the key that unlocks the door to over a years worth of posts, live videos, hints, tips, etc., is to answer the 3 questions that pop up. 

Can't wait to see you in there.

Stay well and 

let's paint together real soon. 

We Sold The Farm

Yep!

We Sold The Farm!

We've packed up 20 years of life

and have moved about 40 miles to the south nearer to 2 of our 4 children and their families.

Yes, right in the middle of the pandemic of the Coronavirus, 

we moved.  

We had to wear masks and gloves for one closing,

This was taken outside the closing on the farm.

This was at the closing in the parking lot on our new house.

and on the porch of our new home. 

As you can see the yard is a mess but 

Jim will be whipping that into shape real soon, I'm sure. 

Here's a short video of my new studio in it's raw stage.

It had ugly green carpet on the floor and my husband Jim ripped it up, at my encouragement and more likely insistence 

and I've ordered new flooring.

Hopefully it will arrive this week and we'll get that down and I can move forward in getting my new studio up and running.

I don't want to bring all my stuff in here, and then have to move it out to put the flooring down.  

I'm really not good at doing things twice for no good reason.  

I brought in just enough stuff so I could teach 

a class to my online friends. 

It is posted on my Painting With Acrylics 101.com Facebook page.

Click HERE to go to that page.  It's a little fractured so you may have to scroll past the ending to get to the beginning.

Does that make ANY sense?

I usually post a class like this on my Facebook groups,

but because of the stay at home order all over the place,

I thought I'd make it available to anyone who wanted to see.

I'll post it in my next blogpost.

If you've always wanted to learn to paint and/or draw, but life got in the way, join my Facebook group created especially for you. 

Click HERE to go to the group.

Ask to join and then answer the 3 questions that pop up.

That's your key into the group.

There's over a years worth of painting and drawing lessons available in this group.  

If you're a homeschool family and would like to add art to your curriculum, Click HERE to join my Facebook group.

I pray you and your family are well and safe.

these are crazy times and I know it is difficult to stay home.

Hopefully we will get a handle on this soon

and we can go back to living our lives.