Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Land of Make-Believe

I'm all about sketches these days. I'm reluctant to show these since I'm right smack in the middle of the process, but i will anyway, since all I'm looking for at this point is advice on the composition and colors.

This is a rough start for a 8'x12' mural I was asked to do in my hometown. My idea is a landscape of fairy tale characters. it's hard to make out a few of them (that's the musicians of Bremen on stage next to the cottage, the 3 bears checking their mailbox down the road from Repunzel's castle, and the princess on top of the glass hill across the street from jack's beanstalk) but you get the point. Enjoy

~Click here for Larger version~

3 comments:

Sara Wood said...

this is great!!

i instantly find the color scheme to be really appropriate and "story book," and i've fallen in love with the details: the frog prince, the golden goose egg, the 3 bears...all of the tiny additions. there's something wonderfully "folk" going on here...almost like a genre painting, and i think that that has something to do with the perspective, which seems to be overlooking the scenes from a hilltop.

i'll need some time to come up with suggestions.

Sara Wood said...

coming back to it, i feel like there should be more reds mixed in. not pinky reds, as on witch's candy cottage, but brick reds. things are looking a little bit too sagey and buttery.

also, i see two visual bald spots where i'd really like there to be some sort of subject or focal point: by the shore to the right of rapunzel's knight, and at the top right, around the base of the mountain and into the distance.

looking forward to seeing the developments! also, where will this future mural be located, if you don't mind my asking?

Travis said...

Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy
it's wonderful as always

I agree with everything Sara said
The mountain in the top right stuck out to me too as being a little naked—maybe some more low rock formations connecting that short and spiky mountain to the leafier ones in the background would help... or maybe just moving that short mountain a little higher so its peak overlaps with the mountains in the background would help keep it from seeming framed in green.

I love the warped perspective, but I think something about the horizon line is throwing me off. The castle and clouds on the left make that side of the horizon seem much lower than the right side. Maybe it also has something to do with how the smoke from the three bears' house is blending in with the clouds. If there was maybe a little bit of land showing through in the background that could balance out the mountains on the right, it could help fix that... or maybe raising up the ocean so that it peeks up over the horizon of the land a little bit. Although I guess right now you have this nice edge-of-the-world thing going on, but I'm not sure if it's clear enough to tell whether or not it's intentional. I hope all that makes sense.

I think it's a little odd too how the river, although it meanders a little, cuts kind of a straight line up through the composition. If maybe you just varied the degree of its curves it could make it seem a little less zig-zaggy.

I think the only other thing I can think of is that maybe the painting would benefit from more "Jimmy" things—all of your little embellishments and strange lines and patterns could really work well here.

I hope these made sense, I'm not feeling very articulate right now. This is beautiful and I'm really excited to see some pictures of the finished thing!