Finished, Belfast Sunrise

Marinos_88

Hey all, 
Would really appreciate your help/input on this one. 
I took a picture a while ago and thought it would make a nice painting. See below for picture and a watercolor study.

Would you have any suggestions about moving/removing elements on the picture? 
Do you think there's a better way to crop the image?
Is it worth doing an oil painting of this?
Thx!
Marino

dencal

Marino
Looking good.

No!

No!

Yes!

Denis

GTO

I’m glad you dropped the gang symbols.  

The composition looks great and I do think it will make a great oil painting .

joydeschenes

Very cool picture & idea. I’m really drawn to the bottom left area with the curved  curb and light on the textured road, it’s a nice lead.  I definitely think there’s a painting in there. 

JaffH

Wow! Looks really good

tassieguy

I like the composition a lot and I like your water colour study better than the photo. I don't think there's any need to remove or add anything. It's definitely worth doing as an oil painting.

Marinos_88

Thanks a lot for the replies!
And would it be a good idea to stick with the study's colours? Orange for the lights and purple for the darks?
Or try matching the pictures colour?

tassieguy

I think the violet and orange works ok. Will you be using oils? If so, you'll be able to get a lot more depth in the darks. The buildings are basically silhouettes. I'd try to keep that look.

Marinos_88

Hey Rob,
Yeah I'm thinking oils, I suppose if I copy the saturation of the colours but change them it will look ok. More saturated in the foreground and less in the background.
Yes I'll keep the buildings as silhouettes, and give a little bit more detail close to the traffic light. 
Anyway, I'll give it a go see how it goes. Thx for the suggestions

MichaelD

I like how you have done the study @Marinos_88 and with the light and silhouettes this looks like it will be great.

Looking forward to seeing it.

  

Marinos_88

Thx @MichaelD, I hope it turns out ok😋
I have a 40x50 panel and I'm wondering if I can use that panel, the thing is the area I'm going to use on the surface is less it's more like a 35x50. 
Is that going to be a problem if I decide to frame it? 
Thx

dbsibley3472

I like the picture and the study.

CBG

@Marinos_88

I don't think you need to try matching the picture's colour, but one of the striking aspects of the scene as shot, is the echo, or relationship between the bright orange of the sun/sky and its repetition if you will, in that glass rectangle.

So I would lean towards the picture rather than the watercolor, tone down the value of the road, and let the glass rectangle and the light of the sky, talk to one another.  IMHO

allforChrist

You've done a fantastic job protraying the light.  

Excited to see if you do an oil of it.  I hope you do.

Marinos_88

@CBG you're right about the play of the light, I've done another study in an A4 artboard. This time I left out the person waking the dog in the distance and the car on the left. I think what drew me in the first place was the light and the antithesis of warms and cool colours. So I'll let that be the main focus of the painting.
Here's the second sketch done in oil paint.

Not 100% satisfied with the colours. At the moment I'm using a screen to look at the picture as a reference for the colours. The think is that the screen isn't calibrated and I'm not sure if it's the same as my mobile phone. On my mobile phone in the picture the colours appear to be warmer.
Here's the setup in the garage:

I'll work on the Sketch a bit more to get the colours right and when I'm happy with the result, I'll go ahead to copy the sketch onto a bigger 40cmx50cm wooden linen board.

Marinos_88

@allforChrist thanks for your kind comment. I really don't think I'm there yet in regards to portraying the light beautifully, but I'm positive about this one. I'm taking my time to get it right and then copying it on a big canvas will be a piece of cake

CBG

@Marinos_88

Looking great!  I think you are well on your way, and your commitment is inspiring.  Only you can paint it the way you want it but I would encourage you thusly, do not be afraid of the dark, only the darks can bring out and truly show the brilliance of the light.   Good luck!  

Marinos_88

finished..
Not quite what i wanted to achieve but again a lot of things learned from this process. 
i initially drew with a pencil on the white canvas but decided to cover it as i went ahead to block in my shadows and lights. 
not happy with my drawing and next time I'll try to have a more clear vision of what I'm trying to emphasize on my painting. 
colours are a bit "mehhh".. 
Comments, suggestions & critique more than welcome, especially honest critique..
thx for stopping by, Marino.

ArtGal

i like the subtle  glowing coming thru canvas, great painting

A_Time_To_Paint

I really like the subtlety of tones and the play of light and shadows.  The phone booth is simply glowing, capturing the sunlight and magnifying it.  Looks like a very cold winter day and the sun in the booth just beckons to make up an excuse to call someone to warm up for a bit.  

tassieguy

Congratulations on capturing the light in this, @Marinos_88. I love the way the booth glows the same colour as the sky. And I think leaving the buildings in the background as silhouettes works very well.  

Marinos_88

@ArtGal, @A_Time_To_Paint and @tassieguy Thanks a lot for your kind comments!

Lucian

Nice composition! A remarkable display of skill shown in your use of light and shadows.

oilpainter1950

I too like the way you captured the light.  Nice painting.

Abstraction

I seriously wasn't sure it was going to work - thanks so much for proving me wrong.

There's a lovely moodiness to this piece. The criss-cross interplay of angles and the cool shadows and gently yellow/orange dawn create a fascination. You've given the eyes so many ways to look but all in diagonal lines like an invisible grid pattern. The light is strong enough that you feel you need to peer between it into the shadows and the aerial perspective accentuates the depth - you feel the footpath and street stretch away forever into the unknown. I can feel the cool air. And that phone box all aglow in the centre of all these converging lines is a counter-intuitive masterful centrepiece - like cubism - only it's really there, as if the humble mundane little telephone box has it's moment of glory and is singing in response to the forthcoming sun.

MichaelD

You have done a great job of this @Marinos_88, the silhouettes, light and shadows.

I think it was a good area to simplify and make it less busy than the source.

Well done. 

Marinos_88

@Lucian, @oilpainter1950 thx for taking the time to comment.
@Abstraction how come you thought it's not going to work? I too, thought it's not going to work, at the beginning because of how many points of interest was in the picture( pedestrian, light, phonebooth, traffic light). As I'm growing artistically l i realise more and more it takes skill to include less in the painting. less is more, my humble opinion..
One lesson I've learned from this painting is that preliminary studies help you deal with some issues  before finalizing the painting. 
thx for the wonderful description, i don't feel all that when i look at the painting. Maybe because the drawing is not that strong (wrong proportions) and i would like some super straight lines. I have to find a tool for that job as i was using the palette knife but still wasn't able to create a decent long straight line. 
again thx for the positive comment

Marinos_88

thx @MichaelD for taking the time to comment

Abstraction

Marinos_88 said:

@Abstraction how come you thought it's not going to work?

I'm not sure. The phone box, the traffic lights were very dominant shapes almost as if they were blocking the view. I think what came through in the painting was the diagonal criss-cross of traffic lights, trees and path on one side and from the other diagonal the sunlight (in particular) and shadow, with the phone box as the pivotal intersection. I didn't see that as clearly in the photo and first sketch. I'm not good with design - I'm still figuring it out. I was on Norfolk Island in pacific last week and had all this beauty around meand didn't know how to frame the photos meaningfully. Take photo - nah, that's not what it is I was searching for.

Marinos_88

@Abstraction -about the design

I didnt think about objects in space(like, this is a tree, this is a phone booth and so on), instead i focused on big light and dark shapes. If you half close ur eyes you should be able to see something like the following:

I just like the way the lights were playing with the sadows(shapes, parralel lines, straight lines, rounded lines you know a bit of variety). Im just explaing my process of though, hope it helps.

Marino

Allie

I really like the way you captured the light. Nicely done! 

GTO

I couldn’t tell if it was a phone booth or one of those shelter stands where you wait for a bus.  Maybe the stop light put in my mind the bus stop shelter,  
In any case I like how you played with the light in the sky.  The sense I get is that the shelter is maybe lit inside.  

The blurry edges give this scene an unreal feel, as if I’m in a fog but a mental fog.