Saturday, September 15, 2018

Reducing the Middle Ground



Yesterday was the last day of my annual Boothbay Harbor Workshop.  We went out to Ocean Point on a beautiful sunny day.  I chose a familiar subject:  the Clark House.

The flat, rocky shoreline was much longer than I made it.  I chose to reduce it so that I could include a more interesting foreground of a large rock and a tree that helped frame my subject.  Depicting every rock and ledge would have been self-defeating and detracted from the cottage.  And looking over and past something led the viewer's eye to the cottage as well.

I always feel free to bring objects in the landscape closer, to eliminate distracting elements, and to enlarge objects in the foreground.

Thanks to my wonderful and talented students for a happy week.  I hope you had fun and also gained some insights about painting techniques and procedures.  Let's do it again next year!

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