Gaztelugatxe
Yea, that name is quite a mouthful. It's a monastery in Spain, full name "San Juan de Gaztelugatxe". It's built on a tiny, rocky peninsula and someone thought it'd be swell to build this crazy staircase leading all the way from the mainland to the monastery building. It's one of those places I really want to visit someday.
It's also one of those places I painted and thought "wow, I'm doing really well" while I was painting it. Turns out I had caught a case of "detailitis", which is a condition that painters suffer from when they become obsessed with getting every detail right, and in the process forget to care about the painting as a whole. Well, at least I had fun painting it.
Overall, values are a problem here. It's quite hard to understand what's going on in terms of shape. The sunlight is coming from the right, but there's only a few areas where I really committed to dark values to show shadows. It should've been a lot more. It's also very bitsy so it's hard to pick out the overall shape of the landscape.
Colors are also not great. Nothing really stands out, and there's no real warm/cool contrast. the rocks on the left especially should be cooler than they are, to show that they are receiving blue light from the sky rather than warm sunlight. It gives the painting a sepia feel. I hate sepia.
Overall though I'm happy with how this one went. It's not the greatest painting ever, but it's a step forward from my previous landscapes. I've picked up on my mistakes easily enough and can do better next time. Onward and upward!
Comments
Post a Comment