Left Side detail
In my last post, I wrote about how I was going over the large canvas on which I am currently at work, weighing the different elements against one another as I try to create balance in the composition. It’s a large canvas, 54″ by 84″, and there is so much more space to oversee, making sure that one area doesn’t so dominate the whole. In a large horizontal landscape composition, if the one side is overly dominant, making the other seem weak or dull, the entire piece suffers no matter how wonderful the strong area may be.
The right side with the heaviest grouping of houses was very strong in the overall composition and I found my eyes always settling on the right side of the canvas. There just wasn’t enough boldness in the sections to the left of center to counter the weight of the houses. I wasn’t about to add more houses or elements so I decided to turn my attention to heightening the colors and contrasts on the left side, strengthening it so that it came closer to the right in weight. I spent a day just going back in with colors that brightened the area and brought more attention to it.
- Right Side detail
I decided to better see the strength of the different areas I would break up the canvas into sections on my computer. This would let me see their strengths without the influence of the surrounding areas and evaluate them as individual compositions. The right side (shown to the right here) was bright and strong with the houses just dominating the area. But after making the changes on the left side ( the image above) I found that it had tremendous strength of its own and was equal in strength to the right, at least in my eyes. The strength of the left side, for me, was in the weight created by the harmony of the colors and the elements. In fact, looking at the left side detail above, I think that it could stand easily as a really strong piece on its own.
Redtree Times 
I recently learned of one of Vermeer’s techniques – using a camera-like device to view parts of the whole. Your division of the canvas sounds functionally very much the same.
And I understand your heightening of colors and contrasts in a way I wouldn’t have a week ago.I’ve been taking advantage of a 30-days-for-free offer from Corel,and I’ve discovered for myself how it’s possible to draw the eye from one part of a photo to another by desaturating color “here”, and adding brighter color “there”. It was fun to read this and understand what you meant.
The suspense is killing me. I can’t wait to see the finished work!
Just a little longer…
[…] I am working on a large canvas, which is nearing completion, by the way. I showed, in a post last week, how I would cut the image into sections to weigh the strength of each area of the canvas […]