Pick this apart for me?

[Chris Saper]

Hi Karen,

My comments are perhaps just expanding on Sharon's insight.

There is a loss of depth and atmosphere necessary to create a sense of space between the subject and the background, which is happening, I think, for several reasons. The edges where the rocks meet water are among the sharper edges in the piece, and uniformly so. Because the rocks are also as saturated, or more so than the subject they don't stay behind the subject. Lastly, in the bottom image, the rocks have a lot of yellow, compared to the image at the top. Yellow is the first color to fall away as a landscape recedes. You could take quite a bit of license here, given the humidity that accompanies the sea shore, by desaturating and cooling the rocks.

How large is this painting?