A quick crit

Above is a painting I had submitted to me for a critique. Below is my crudely photoshopped version. Below that I will discuss what I did to it and why.

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• I felt that the original version was too dotty, so I threw some broader strokes in to it. I made brush marks instead of dots.
• I reworked the fence line. In the original the fence dived down in to the ground, taking the bush behind it along. I also ran some light and shadow patches on the fence to break up the overly insistent geometry there.The grass in the foreground closed in there too. This formed all of these converging pointing lines in a place where nothing was really going on.
• I made the road follow through the foreground into the distance better. It seemed odd the the foreground road was covered in grass and the distance was not. I slipped some shadow variation along the fence line all the way to the boat, giving more variation into that area.
  
• I used "value stacking" to put darks behind the lights and lights behind the darks in the river and boat area. Also in the sky behind the bridge. I now have a more interesting set of values there and the values set off the things I want you to see. Before, for instance the boat just disappeared. Now it lights up against the darker water.
• I softened up the grass in the foreground and made it a little less saturated. It got more light and less color. Light "eats" color.
• I made a less square top on the bush behind the fence. I also pulled it together into simpler less spotty values. It now has a big light and a big dark.
• I accented the boat with bright white to bring your eye to it. I then scattered a little bit of that into the road, which takes your eye there like Hansel's breadcrumbs.
• I made the tree in the upper left hand corner run up and out of the painting, rather than kissing the frame. That looks more natural. Before it looked as if that tree was being careful to duck it's head and stay within the picture.