chair

for illustration friday.

this is an image i was working on in painting class tuesday night. i realized while i was putting in blocks of color that i'd made some compositional choices that would get me in trouble -- there's so much going on BEHIND the chair -- the textured wall and bricks, while the foreground of the picture is rather plain. anyways, i put in the scarf and shoes, hoping to create a somewhat nostalgic mood to the picture, but instead i think that the overall image is a bit too panned-out and the focus is lost.

now that i'm looking at this finished piece, i'm seeing that i was getting greedy, trying to paint too many things in one picture, and that each individual element is so interesting -- a close-up, cropped version of the chair to capture the wood colors and shapes, the scarf's folds, the pair of shoes.

quite a bit of self-criticism here, but hey, i can't expect to like every single piece i paint. and i think the whole process of understanding what i'd like to change makes the time put into it more than worth it.

and i'm back to posting pictures for illustration friday after a long hiatus!