I try to make sure that I include play as an important part of my painting process.  This  is where I just try things to see what they look like.  I find I learn a lot in these ‘fun’ times.  This painting is a beautiful case in point.

This is a painting of the Empire Building in Edmonton.  This painting just uses the basic shape of the buildings as they actually are.  I wanted to see if I could completely change the lighting to go with this extreme sunrise theme. I also wanted to see if the building were interesting enough shapes. The painting turned out absolutely fine, but nothing special.

I thought both the sunrise theme and the shapes of the buildings were fine but then why isn’t it very interesting. The thing that jumped out was that the buildings in the background are as detailed as the closer buildings.  This gets the eye wandering down to the background too much.  I asked myself what is my story?  Where do I want your eye to go?  For me the story is the life on the street in the front so in this painting there are too many distractions.   

So I redid it with the clear intention to push the background buildings further back and keep the detail only in the closest buildings.

In this version your eye is definitely drawn more to the foreground.  It’s a more focused and comfortable visual experience.  

Lesson learned!