Heaven n Hell

[Poess]

SO this is my newest painting. I've been painting for about a month now. I would like to hear ways this could be improved..tips and suggestions on how to become the best artist I can be.
Thanks to anyone who comments! No one did last time..I would love pointers from other artists.
this is 2 feet by 4 feet, acrylics on canvas..

[Small Creatures]

Poess,

The painting is great, the only thing that stands out to me is the angel and the fallen angel. Everything else about the painting, mainly the flowers and the use of colors is awsome.

And HOLY crap only 2 months? Your well on your way to becoming a great artist. I don't think I could do that and I have been drawing my whole life. That's prolly why I got into game design haha.

Keep up the awsome work, and look forward to seeing future posts.

-Small Creatures

P.S. I would give suggestions, but that is not in the nature of a critique. Suggestions might make the piece something other then you wanted it to be, but if you'd be interested in hearing them shoot me a pm and I'd be happy to share.

[Anid Maro]

Definately a cool concept going there. The colors work well together, especially where they blend in the middle at the vines.

I'm not much of a painter myself, I haven't done anything beyond a one semester basic painting class, so you might take what I say with a grain of salt. But I think this painting could use some more refinement and detail work. Particularly on the characters, the clouds, and the lava/inferno thing on the hell side. Put in some more shading to define the form on those things and make them "pop" a little more.

[EmiR]

yes, thats a great idea... but it think the proportions of the angel in heaven are a little worng, the head is too big or the boyd is too small.
i make a pic how i would it do. i have onb time to make it very good because i have to go to work:[
http://i147.photobucket.com/albums/r297/EmiR_2007/heavennhell2copy.jpg
i make the head smaller and her left hand longer and i change the pose a little bit of her legs.
its not the best solution, but i help it helps.

[Poess]

Thank you guys so much! It's hard for me to get critiques because I don't know any other artists in my "real" life...for lack of a better term...and the last art class I had was 4th grade...lol
I'm gonna work on the details some and I completely agree that the angel needs help...
:)

[Seedling]

Hello Poess,
Welcome to the fun world of painting! For having been at it only a month, you are doing well. You might be interested in the “Concept Art 101” link in my sig.

This image is fun but it demonstrates an expected level of novice mistakes in hue, value, composition, anatomy, and story-telling. Put it under your bed, keep painting, and in a year pull it back out and marvel at how much you have learned.

I would give suggestions, but that is not in the nature of a critique.

It's not? That's news to me.

[Poess]

Thanks for your comment, Seedling. I'll check out that link...especially since I have no idea what hue or value mean, and I think I know what your referring to when you say composition and story-telling... but that just shows how amatuer I am. I don't know any of the proper terms, or ever use references..
I think I will end up putting this "under the bed" eventually, but right now I'm kinda proud of it, so it's in my living room :)
I think I already can look at my first paintings and see improvement, so I'm sure I won't be as proud of this one in a few months! lol
anyway, thanks for the replies! I will repost the painting later tonight or tomorrow when I work on it more....but I do have another idea bouncing around in my head so I may put this on hold..
Its hard to find time to paint with 3 kids under 6! lol
~Hollie

I've edited and added some of my other paintings, so people can see my "style"...
:)
Suggestions are more than welcome! As is constructive crit!!

[Seedling]

Its hard to find time to paint with 3 kids under 6! lol


Wow! If you can manage say an hour a day to practice art, you will improve by leaps and bounds, AND you will be an amazing good example to your kids. :-)

[Poess]

I try to do that, actually 2 hours! My kids LOVE to paint so my house if filled with lots of art from me and mostly my 6 year old..she's talented already! The other two sit and color when we paint, its "family paint time"
we try to do it everyday, but sometimes it doesn't work that way. Could someone point me in the right direction to find out how to make my own canvas? Its so expensive, and with my kids painting too, its really breakin the budget..

[Jason Rainville]

Crits on all work:

It depends what you want to get out of art, and how you want to improve. You've showed us 'your style' but what do you want to do with it? Develop it, or try for something else?

From what I see you need to practice more with simple line drawings. The anatomy and form of your figures are not correct (depending on what you want for 'correctness'), as well as your heads.

Right now you have no lightsource defined in any of these, and it's making them very flat. Once you have a firm grasp of figure drawing and the like, you can start really getting into shading. Study how light hits objects and how shadows wrap around forms.

Finally, you can really get into colour. I really think it's best if you put colour aside and start with line drawings, then value (or shading/lighting) drawings. I say that because you can't properly use colour without an understanding of light and shading, and you can't properly work with lighting and shading if you can't work properly with line drawings.

So sketch as much as you can from observation, and like Seedling said, you'll come back to this painting a year from now and SEE the progress. :)