Using Technology to Help me Finish a Painting

When I’m finishing a painting, part of my process is to take a photo of it and look at it on my computer. It’s strange how different it can look on a screen - I see things that I don’t see looking at the original.

Here you can see where I’ve made a couple of notes of things to fix when I have my next painting session. Sometimes I just need to fix something that looks wrong, or perhaps exaggerate something that looks right. Below the lights on the bridge looked great and I knew a bit more yellow and white would make them pop even more.

I also might need to add in obvious things I’ve missed, like shadows in this painting of Torquay Marina at night as people walk across the bridge!

It’s a process I typically repeat a few times over the course of a couple of weeks before I get to a place where I’m happy. It can be frustrating at times when I think I've finished a painting, but then I realise that there are things I need to do to it! However by missing this step I risk the painting missing out on it's full potential.

I've realised that when I say ‘fresh of the easel’ in my social media posts I actually mean, not-so-fresh-while-I-faff-for-a-few-weeks before I take it off the easel and can decide it’s complete!

However I highly recommend this step, it really helps me to pull together the final look of a painting.