Jade2

[Garth Herrick]

Lon does have a point. What kind of story are you trying to tell with this quality of light? I have never been to Arizona, but I would imagine the skies are generally clear as a bell, as opposed to the typical eastern seaboard sky which is generally hazy, humid, oppressive and muggy. The Photoshop sky proposal may be a more "pleasing" color relationship, especially to those from the east who are accustomed to such soft colored skies; but to me it does not jive with the dramatic hard quality of lighting on the figure. Perhaps in an English type landscape situation you could get away with the sky representing changeable weather, with a dark neutral gray sky in the background contrasting with a shaft of setting sunlight in the foreground lighting the figure dramatically as you have. For the clear dry type of environment that is native to this figure, the clear blue sky makes sense, it seems.

Garth

[Jane Bradley]

When I painted the background behind this woman, I was imagining her on the top of a hill with the blue sky around her - if I had time I would have actually painted clouds - yes I was getting kind of corny and definitely a little illustrative -
I am going to try to incorporate all the things I have learned in this discourse with you all when I finish this peace. Sharon, you have given me some good things to ponder - I will study Degas as you suggest, and certainly Sergeant, who is one of my favorites. Lon and Garth, you are right about blue skies and Arizona - ever since I moved here and started painting again, I can't take the blue skies out of my palette - the blue skies are everpresent - and this is the model's environment too (she is Navajo). The trick is to make it feel like she resides in this environment.
Thanks Sharon, Lon and Garth for your input . You have been extremely helpful. I will repost this when I have finished it.

[Linda Brandon]

Originally Posted by Garth Herrick

I have never been to Arizona, but I would imagine the skies are generally clear as a bell, as opposed to the typical eastern seaboard sky which is generally hazy, humid, oppressive and muggy. Garth

Atmospheric perspective is different out here in that vistas 50 miles away can seem to be just around the corner. It can give you a sense of vertigo. Also, the lack of greenery and the general rusty red color of many of the rocks is odd from a Eastern landscape atmospheric perspective.

Nice painting Jane, have you thought about putting a low hilly horizon line in at the bottom to ground the painting?

[Jane Bradley]

Linda,
I like the idea of the low hilly horizon - that might bring the whole picture together more. Thanks for the input.