The Drive & The Waiting Game
Before the painting ‘The Fare’, I painted the image ‘The Waiting Game’, I liked this painting, and I think that it’s important that I show why I think that it didn’t give off the right feeling I wanted before I move on.
The Waiting Game
This image had a lot more detail in it than I first thought, the tree and the mans shirt, tie and hand took a lot of delicate work to depict, and I think it turned out well. However, the main reason I started this more simplistic style was to add a sense of mystery to the painting, and make it so that the viewer wasn’t completely sure what was happening in the painting. I think that this image shows too much of what is going on, and it’s quite obvious that the man looking at his watch is waiting for someone at a beach hut. I didn’t want that much to be portrayed in this image, and so in the future I will make sure that such complicated images will be simplified.
The Drive
I painted this right after I finished painting ‘The Fare’, and I think that it feels more like I wanted it to than ‘The Fare’ felt. By using less detail I think that ‘The Drive’ has a lot more mystery than the other painting. The viewer might wonder who the passenger is, and where the car is going.
I really liked the colour palette for this painting, the change from the light brown sky and car colour to the yellow of the street lights worked really well, and the black cab, and ‘TAXI’ sign really helped the image pop.
In the composition stage, I made sure to eliminate all non critical details, like clouds, cars, reflections, and shadows.
If I had to redo this painting knowing what I do now, then I think I would lower the contrast between the blackness of the taxi cab, and the driver’s face a little bit.
All in all, I like how this painting turned out, but now I want to try painting an image with a lot of light in it. I think that keeping the right sense of simplicity in the next painting will be hard as there is a lot that has to be conveyed.
Joe
