Corrections

After I post each painting, I receive a critique from my all-time favorite painter/dad, Peter Yesis.  Critique usually is a harsh word, but the critiques I receive, while highly helpful, are never harsh.  Most the time I've barely realized how much I've learned until I go back and look at the painting on my own.  For my last 3 paintings, I've decided to post them with corrections.

First was the tomatoes painting.  For this one, the suggestion was to make the foreground, the side of the ledge of darker value than the surface.  And, no, that glare on the painting is not your eyes.  It's my camera.  In terms of photography, the first is better.  In terms of a painting, I understand the light hits the side of the ledge less than the surface.

BEFORE:                                                                                       AFTER:

Then, for the lemons, there the fact that all 3 lemons were painted the same lemon yellow, not allowing for the fact that 2 of them receded into the background, and the the lemon slice was in the foreground.  

BEFORE:                                                                                        AFTER:

 For the pear and plums, I think I killed the pear in my corrections.  While I made the foreground warmer than the background and eliminated the reflections from the overhead light (not the light source for the still life), I had trouble when I went into make the pear's values more exaggerated - again a problem with having the pear appear to recede into the background.  Personally, I like the pear on the first painting better.  I think I'm going to have to paint it again. . . .