Schoen - plein air

1) What is the emotional tone of the image, and how is this accomplished? What are the objects and what is the space?

My Plein Air project is a low vantage point of the side of my house with a little foliage on the side. The space and emotional tone is flat. The building doesn't feel any depth. Their might be a sense of looming, because the red bricks take up most of the painting, but it is offset by the bright colors.

2) Is this a balanced composition? How could this further be improved?

Since most of the painting is an overwhelming, bright red, I tried to make the green branch and the blue sky just as stunning. With all the colors in your face, it ends up balancing the composition. I suppose I could have added more of the color stripes to the brick, but I liked it how it was, just a wall of red.

3) Is there volume, space, depth, and texture in both your objects and your space?

I tried to make the lines surrounding the branch fuzzy compared to the lines of the house. This way I could give a little sense of depth. Otherwise, the image is pretty flat.

4) Have you captured a specific time of day? What time is it?

I painted during the mid-morning, about 9 to just about 12. The Sun was directly behind me which made shadows very shallow. Also, there was not a cloud in the sky so it was a very, bright blue.

5) How could you improve this composition? Give at least three examples.

I could definitely use more depth. The part of my house that I choose was very simple, which made the majority of my painting flat. Perhaps I could have painted a different part of the house. The board I used was a flimsy thing. I thought it was good enough, but then it bowed. Luckily, I painted on cloth around it, but it looks pretty terrible with that board. Lastly, my three main colors are obvious, red, green, and blue. While I did add little splashes of other colors, perhaps I could have added more.