Sometimes it’s just not possible to leave something alone, especially when dealing with a medium as flexible as collage. I awoke this morning to find my mind picking over the little image I’d posted yesterday, made for Marly’s book, Thaliad. Something about it just wasn’t right, and so within minutes I was snipping and glueing in a frenzy to pull it back from the edge of destruction… destruction being my default position when something isn’t working! So, here, for those of you engaged by such puzzles, are a couple of images, a before and an after. Can you spot the differences? (For those too exasperated to bother, I’ll explain what I did at the foot of the post.) And do you think the second image an improvement, or should I have left well alone? The fact is that this will be so small on the page that no-one apart from me, Beth, Marly and the odd Artlogger will ever know it was changed!
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Version One
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Version Two
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Well, I feel better, anyway! And I’m certainly not going to destroy it, which I was on the brink of this morning.
OK, here are the changes made.
i) I lightened the snow above the barn and to the left of it, to better define the outline of the building.
ii) I changed the tree at the left, shaping it with a trunk so that it was more recognisable as what I intended.
iii) I added a stand of conifers to the horizon, between the central hill and the one far right.
iv) I lightened the right side of the barn with tone, to define the building’s form. I added a tiny, darkened window at the top of the pine end, as the detail seemed to help the character of the image. Probably nothing that anyone else would notice, but it makes me feel that both the drawing and the building have life beneath the surface of things.
Clive Hicks-Jenkins' Artlog: 
The second one is a little busier, but that’s not a bad thing. In fact, it’s better!
Ha ha. Well that’s me Thom, busy, busy, busy!
Yes I agree the tree by the barn is much better now and the lighter end of the barn gives a much more 3D look to the building, plus those smaller trees on the horizon add a perspective
Yes. It’s funny — that tree or shrub had registered strongly on me yesterday, maybe because it wasn’t clearly either! I did spot the changes and agree with you that they’re all improvements; I especially like the trees on the horizon now. Odd thing, isn’t it, this complicated working with dark and light? I’m reminded of your drawing of the tattooed “foliate” young man, a while back — similar problems, different medium, and well resolved both times!
Sometimes you just have to sleep on it and the answers come to you. The day that I worked on the first version, the phone didn’t stop ringing and my mind was all over the place. I was running on automatic and missing the details. Today I awoke knowing what to do. A case of the subconscious working when the rest has surrendered to sleep. That little stand of conifers really makes the composition work in a way it wasn’t before I added them.
Glad you approve the changes Beth. I’ve made a few more images since then, but I shall hold back some surprises for the book!
*i* would have fished it out of the bin. 😀
it never would have occurred to me, but i think the changes to define the right side of the barn make a big difference, in the end. i really like it…such a mood evoked by this one!
Interesting, isn’t it, Zoe? Such small changes, but collectively significant to an intense degree with the overall feel.
That was a fine eye-puzzle. Definitely even better than before (the tree at left my eye had read as some sort of structure.) If you had thrown it away, I am sure that Peter would have fished it out of the bin!
Ha ha! I am more cunning than when I worked at Tretower, where he raided the bins. Now there is the wood-burning stove, from which nothing returns!
I destroy very little these days. I am better at rescues! (-;
You’re spot-on about the tree. That’s just what I thought.