I'm deep in the throes of re-writing my book,
Landscape Painting in Pastels. It will eventually be available for download or to purchase as a paperback or hardbound version through one of the online publishers. I'd like to get it done this year but that seems to be a little more than a month away now, so I'm not sure! At the moment I'm trying to locate or paint some effective illustrations for it, which is how I happened to find this little demo recently. It shows how you can recompose a foreground to make it stronger or more interesting.
The foreground is such a tricky and demanding area! It simply HAS to support the area of interest, if that should lie outside the foreground, or if it contains the area of interest it has to aid it in an effective way. I've seen some pretty lazy and weak ways people handle the foreground,
(uh oh--myself included!), such as simply minimizing it to nothing and ending up with things seated on the 'windowsill' of the painting. I've spent some time studying what it is that makes the foreground plane work. The book has a lot more information, of course, but to summarize I'd say the two key elements of a foreground are
shapes (which is what this demo shows) and
patterning.
I used a piece of recycled Wallis paper for this demo, so you can see a ghost of the previous image's colors underneath. I find that I can ignore such remnants pretty easily and often reclaim the paper by simply rubbing out the painting that was there. I did the drawing with extra soft thin vine charcoal (Grumbacher #2.) The changes were easy on the toned surface of the Wallis. I just used my foam brush to swish things away and redrew them.
I'm showing the contours of the land plane here. It's always advisable to understand where the land twists and turns, and adding a road cutting through these planes is an effective way to show them. Roads are compelling devices--they lead the eye to the end of the road no matter what! So the question becomes how you can use that compelling movement to your advantage. You'll notice that the mountains don't change in these three images. That's because I changed the drawing to illustrate how a road can work differently.
1.
2.
3.
My challenge to you is to study these three and decide which you think is most effective and WHY. It isn't a matter of "I like it best", which isn't an invalid response, just not useful here except maybe to get you started thinking about why you like it. This is a chance to look at each one and decide what works. What is the area of greatest interest? (**Note: NOT the focal point. This isn't a photograph.) What SHAPES contribute to that best? What visual path does your eye take through the whole composition? Where does it start and stop? What would you plan to add and where?
Better yet, feel free to copy them and ADD TO them, (right click, Save Picture As) rearrange the shapes, and then show me what you did... Does it need a bush or tree or fence posts? Would you add to the sky, or include a car or a cow? You can e-mail it to me deb(at symbol)deborahsecor.com and I'll post it, if you like, since I don't know if you can include images in the comments.
I'll tell you what I think about each one later! Suffice it to say that there's room for improvement on each of these. Have some fun and tell me what you think. Pass the word and invite anyone to join us!
Would it be right for that yellow on the wall to say, "Look! I'm the perfect color for a wall in sunlight. Deborah used me to do that. It's a privilege"? No, it has no right to brag about the painting. It didn't make it. In fact, it could really only understand the little part it plays, not the total painting. 
