Come flay with me, lets flay, lets flay away!

I wonder if flayed and filleted have the same root?
Here's some chickens, the problem with this picture is that the white chicken, which is the subject (I think ) is leaving the stage through the voms ( look it up, its a theater expression )

This chickens feet are standing on the rabbet of the frame at A, there needs to be enough space here to get those feet in, so he doesn't . People make this mistake with trees and the occasional figure too, At B his beak is too close to the edge of the canvas . This whole chicken would be happier if it were pulled up and to the left.

This painting could be improved by having a greater range of values. Almost the entire picture is couched in two or three values. Do you remember how in the olden days we learned to read from Dick and Jane. The teacher had to teach us about six words before we could read at all. Jane, see Dick run, spot runs fast etc. It was necessary to have that many words in order to tell the story. The story couldn't be told with just three words. A picture is like that, we need enough values to tell our story. I need to do a post on the law of consequent angles.

I also think those two pointy sky holes at 12 and 1 o'clock at the top of the picture are mechanical looking . They are too similar, and too knife like. They might be OK if they were not as assertive.

I knew the late Charles Vickery, a seascape painter, he used to tell a story about taking a painting to Aldro Hibbard who he admired, for a critique., He put his painting down in front of Aldro, and Aldro was quiet and looked at the picture for a long time. Then he got up to leave and as he turned to walk away he told Vickery, "watch out for needles!" When Vickery told me that story I scratched my head for a while, but I gradually figured out what Hibbard meant.

Those spikey shapes in the sky are needles. Beware of pointy geometric shapes that accidentally appear in a design. Ives Gammell would say that "like a fish in the wall paper, having been once perceived will no more down than Banquos ghost!" (Its evidently theatre night, besides dissection night )

This is really nice little painting.The artist sent me the image they had taken of it wet, and shot on the ground next to their easel. I think though, that it has a fault in the dark wall that goes from one side of the picture to the other without interruption. A streak of light or two might break that up nicely.The line of that wall seems to run uphill somewhat I think some broken reflections in the water below it might also help with that problem. Maybe I will attack this one in photoshop over the course of this week.

Every thing in this painting marches across the picture plane like a frieze. That is not a big problem but the painting might have been better if there was a point where something fell at a different angle rather than as another horizontal line. The ends of the gables seem a little asymmetrical I expect they need to be straightened out when you get this one back to the studio. Hard to find a lot wrong with this one though. Nice job!

This is really nice too. It must be out on the west coast. The rocks lead you very effectively to the spire which is the subject of the picture. That rocky spire in the midground there has a really nice shape. I couldn't resist the urge to trick up that water a little bit. I love painting seascape. Seascape painting has to be done out of your head, the sea won't hold still, and it can't be painted from a photo and come out very well. So you have to learn how the hydraulics work and create it.

I pretty much left everything alone except for the water. I think it is more effective with the more active water.The rocks were so worked up yet the water was sort of blank looking. I have spread linear drawing across more of the canvas. I also lit one side of the sky and then dropped its value as it ran across the canvas. That's a little trick that gives a little more interest there, and also gives a feeling of light. I expect it was a calm day and the artist may say that I wasn't true to his intentions. But I do feel its a lot more dynamic and will hold a a viewers attention longer. That's the beauty of photoshop I can do this to a painting, yet the artist still has it in its original form and undamaged. Either way that was fun to do. Is it actually better? I don't know, you decide. It would stand out better in a show or gallery.

I have also thrown a high key note, the foam of the breaking wave, next to the dark of that rocky spire. That makes a tonal climax right at the subject matter. I bring more attention to the area by doing that.

There still plenty of time left in this week to critique more art, send me images, and I will crit your paintings too.
More tomorrow of the great flaying project.