Another dissection

Ribera, Apollo flaying Marsyas image from artrenewalorg the worlds largest online museum, check em out at http://www.artrenewal.org/asp/database/contents.asp

As long as I am showing that baroque painting, I suppose I will dissect it a little just to make sure MY knife is sharp.

Look at that, hidden geometry.Theres a hamster trail, habitat design going on in there! Ribera has linked the two figures together into a large rhythmic vortex. That big black tree brings your eye down to Marsyas who is expressing some discomfort. Marsyas lost a contest with Apollo over who could best play the aeolian pipes. It is best not to wager with Gods.

I have received e mails from some of you who want to sign up for the New Hampshire workshop which will be held September 19th through the 21st.The hills of New England at that time of the year are beautiful and I have scoped out the area around Jaffrey and it should be a great place to do a workshop. There are lakes and rushing rivers, old mills, and small villages full of historic clapboard houses. It is excellent landscape terrain. It is mostly hardwood and there are still open fields and of course Mt. Monadnock. This will be an intensive three day workshop and I will attempt to cram in as much instruction as I possibly can in this time. We will paint together during the day and then join up for dinner in the evening, so we can talk shop and enjoy the company of other artists.I have some information on affordable lodging that I will post soon. Here is the link to sign up. I hope I will see you there.

http://stapletonkearnsgallery.com/news.html

Lets see, our first contestant has been strapped to the gurney and despite some struggling, misgivings, and annoying shrieking, is finally resigned to some surgery.


Here's a lovely little patio scene. I think it has a lot of charm. Certainly the sort of thing that people like to hang in their homes as it reminds them of leisure and a break from the worries of everyday life. I felt it could use a little more light and some more impressionist handling to give it a happier more summery look. Here's what I did to it in photoshop.

Here are some of the things I did to this image and why.

• It looks like the sort of image that would look good with a broken color French impressionist look, so I took it that direction. The artist who did this may have had entirely different intentions for it, but I have no way of knowing that, and as usual I have never seen this place and have no references other than the painting submitted for the critique.
• I turned up the light to glare level.I made a strong pattern on the ground and the furniture. Notice for instance how I separated the light and shadow on that cushion on the ottoman in the foreground. I felt the image before was a little mushy, dividing out the lights gave it a crisper look.
  
• I scattered little pixels and accents across the piece and used them to break up the linearity of the drawing and to get sparkle.
• I tied some of the darks together to get the parts of the painting to relate more to each other. I also did this to get a more circular design, a little like our miserable Marsyas above.
  

Well, that's it for tonight, I will return tomorrow.