I’ve been working on the painting for my mother some more. I erased the areas that I didn’t like (the butterfly, the music notes, the background of their wedding sign). It’s so nice that you can just erase when working with pastels!
I then thought about it some more. Tried out things in my mind. Discarded some ideas. Then I had a lightbulb moment. I could put the water and earth inside the wedding sign (the j and r in the circle), connecting them to my parents and connecting my parents to the landscapes. Also, the golden j contrasts with the water very nicely, as does the fuchsia r and the grass. It was hard to make water the same colour and structure as the water in the river, but I managed to make it quite similar.
Then I decided to make the music notes blue to have more harmony in that area colourwise. That worked. They were less pronounced, but still quite visible.
I also tried to give the yarn ball a bit more depth by adding some darkness to the shadow side and some lightness to the top. It looks better than before, but I’m not entirely content. It’s actually hard to distinguish that it’s yarn if you don’t know what it is…
The last thing left to do was the butterfly. I kind of like the delicate lightness at that stage, but it was the only thing in the painting that was so light in colour. Not even the sun was so bright. I didn’t really want a bright butterfly per se, but I did want a delicate one. Then I got the idea of bringing the lines from the sheet music into the butterfly, in a lighter blue. I put in some more lines to make a nice pattern and redid the blue lines around the wings. Much better!
I’m quite certain I don’t want to change more, but I’ll leave the painting on the easle for now. I have ordered a frame with a passe partout that is one size bigger than the painting (A3 vs. A2). Quite large, I know, but I hope my parents won’t mind.
By the way, this was my first sketch:
Obviously, some things have changed. No more organ, but a piano. The cat is gone (unfortunately). The cyclists on the road have become a river. But it’s also still quite similar.