Two Ireland Paintings and Changes

Yesterday I started two paintings from my photos from Ireland. Today I have been working on them to make them better. It involved quite significant changes -- such as brushing off some of the pastel so I could place a completely different value and composition in the place of what I had done yesterday. These are both 9x12 paintings on Ampersand Pastelbord ... and take a load of abuse!

Here is one before the change, and then after the change. Below that are greyscales of each of them.

Notice the rocks in the foreground and the little flowers. This is how I left it yesterday afternoon when I closed up the studio. I thought is was coming along nicely though I worried about the rock wall creating a barrier to a person moving into the painting. And, it looks nothing like the photo I was using. I'll post that also.










Here is the photo:

Now here is the second painting, showing you first the way I left it yesterday afternoon, and then what I did with it today. Below those are two photos that I combined to create the scene and the greyscale of each day's work.

I thought there needed to be a harmonizing color and value along the bottom of the painting. I usually put cool temperature colors at the bottom to help a person "jump" over those cool colors and enter the painting.

Tomorrow, I will come down again -- or when I come to the studio again -- I will take another look and see if I still like the changes I made. I will ask myself this question, "Is there any change I would do that would make these paintings significantly better?" If the answer is no, then this is how they will stay. And, I will move on to the next Ireland paintings. Sometimes, you need to just go on to the next painting to implement what you learned on the most recent work!