Mind Traveler

Hello there,

This painting looks really good and doesn't feel like it needs something from the outside. When I tend to lose sight of my overall purpose and message to convey, I start to feel like it needs more, but I don't know what. Then I ask myself, what was the purpose of this piece and have I accomplished it. If the answer is no, then I set it aside until I know exactly what to do with it. Sometimes I ask other people what they would add. They usually tell me to add nothing. Great art makes you look deeper and longer so if you can't stop looking at your piece, maybe you don't understand how great it is. And if it isn't perfect, who cares. Not like you can't make another.

This is a VERY difficult subject that you are dealing with, peace and gratitude and feelings that are very specific to the individual, looking at this image I do not arive at that sensation, and I believe that is because I simply do not relate to the objects in the image. Thinking about that, I realized that I could not think of any paintings that made me feel like that, so I went on a bit of a web dive to find something, not much success, but I found two.

and

So looking at these two paintings, it might be the simplicity that works to evoke that feeling. Again remember we are just talking about feeling and how I feel looking at the images, stick with what moves you, and just take this as a friendly answer to the question you asked.

So now recomendations for what you might try changing.

The pose that you are using is very reasonable, a peaceful smile and open hands are pretty consistent symbols for gratitude.
However the placement of the character has him facing out from the canvas and is drawing my eye away to the right, leaving the bottom left as dead space and only a little bit of attention paid to the structure. This is further strengthened by the brightness on the horizon to the right of the image. Since it is digital, maybe try moving him central or flip him so that something in his gaze moves to the rest of the image.

It looks like the petals are used to try to make a connection between the man and structure, It seems to just be busy noise as it is, perhaps have them flowing upward, or change the value so that they blend in with the rocks water and air less.

Yep, the more I look at this, a vertical layout could be much more evocative of what you are going for. Keep in mind that this is just a quick 1 minute pastey markup job, but I think this has potential, you need to do the work to seperate out the values of the man and the waterfall properly and balance out colors, but it might have a more universal appeal.

Here is a link to where I placed the image draw over,

https://www.peterh.net/211105crit

I am still ironing out some issues with sharing direct links and didn't want to signup for some random imagehost site and put art that wasn't mine up on it.

I hope this helps, and again its just my own opinion please remember that and follow your passion.

Well, jcmlfineart, I must say that you're on the right track, as far as the composition and color script go. Great job on your human anatomy and imagined pose.

My tinest, smallest and most insignifigant critique I'd like to give you, is that though your pose is perfectly readable, but your gesture is not too exaggerated enough. Would you care for loosening up your design quickly and roughly with your first ever 1 hour 30 minute class mode in our website? (Trust me, you and I haven't done that before, but it's certainly worth a try.)

As a result, your anatomy will become the least stiffest, and the most fluidest and liveliest in your imaginary attitudes and human anatomy and hands and feet and so on.

Hope this helps you out so much.