Red in the Middle, 14″ x 11″, UART 400

Here is the final picture (as of now).  While it may seem that I just copied the photo, there are several changes. There is a little green pine in the upper right (in the photo) that I decided to omit so that it wouldn’t compete with the red tree.  Also, the tree on the right, in the photo, has a lot of yelllow leaves on it. I thought they would also compete and only put in a slight suggestion of them.

I’m not sure if the red is too red? I used four different reds, including a pink and red orange.    But I like the abstract quality of the composition. And the water came out pretty good. A big, very ugly green Ludwig did a lot of it. But I couldn’t have it all be green, so I used red violet and some blue violet over that. The last thing was the reflection of the red tree in the water and bottom center.

Edges are really important and a potential problem in this image. There are a lot of hard edges, but then rocks DO have hard edges. I tried to keep the sharpest ones in the center leading to and from the tree and to keep those on the edges a little softer. One thing I did was to use cooler or slightly darker lights in the areas further from the middle.

It’s been a good day to stay in. And now my dark blue Girault is completely exhausted!  So it’s time to quit and move on to other things. But I’ve enjoyed working on rocks. Expect more to come!