- Published on
Springtime in the Mountains
I painted this 18 years ago and I remember thinking I wanted it to be bubbly and springlike. I held on to it because I liked the airiness of the composition and some of the elements - the cabins, the willow and the bridge, for instance - but I knew I had problems with the waterfall and I positively hated my little 'bunches' of red trees. Clearly I had little idea of how to integrate rock and vegetation. It felt unfinished, but back then I didn't know how to progress the painting. I decided to see if I could 'fix' some of the problems as an exercise to train my eye to see alternative choices.
Areas to Work On
Here are some of the areas I decided to change. I will add more bluish-green pines on the left behind the flowering tree. My reason is to hide the nasty humpy black hill strokes (bottom left circle). Above them, I will make those trees on the left a bit bigger (second circle) because they are the same size as the nasty little red trees on the right and they need to be bigger because they are closer.
Pines Added on Left and Right
I'm still unsure of what to do with those wretched little red trees on the right. I have added some more pines below them which has helped to make the wretched reds recede a bit, but it has also cut off part of the layer of mist (that white band) which, in Chinese painting vocabulary is the equivalent of "....." meaning: there is more landscape between the two layers but the mist indicates that things are further back.