Hey everyone, it's update time!

Here's the painting I worked from this evening.

Georges Seurat - "Riverman"

This is another wonderful painting from Seurat, I really like the composition here. The man in the boat is a clear focal point, he's dead center in the image, and he's surrounded by oars (or lines) that lead you through the rest of the painting. The oar on the right points toward the shore, which then leads your eye further into the background. In the background there looks to be some homes along the water, you can see the blue grey rooftops above the purple swath of paint that is the buildings. It's positioned very purposefully to lead the viewer back to the boat, as they're both the same relative size, and have roughly the same silhouette. The space at the bow of the boat is almost equidistant to the space between the shore, and the houses or village in the background. This image is super balanced, and very thoughtfully composed. Alright, that's enough for analyzing, let's see how I did.

As soon as I added my version this post immediately saw where I went wrong, in more ways than one! I really think looking over these pieces critically, before I start painting them, would aid me in replicating them. I'm always so anxious to dive in that I think I end up missing a lot, and I think that's really apparent right here. I missed the mark when it came to getting the relationships between the objects correct, and the scale's a bit off as well. I'm gonna find myself some Post-It notes and put one on my monitor that reads, "look your references over first," that way I don't make silly errors like this again. At the very least I'm satisfied with my assessment of the original work, and I've got a plan of action for my next pieces that way I don't end up in the same boat. Sorry, that was a terrible pun I couldn't pass up.

Check back tomorrow for something new, later!