Finished painting.

This is the final painting. I am reasonably happy with the outcome of the painting and I think I have managed to create the nostalgic and dreamlike atmosphere that I wanted to try and capture.
I am also pleased with the final colours that I have used. I have kept to a limited palette and have mixed the colours . This has gone towards creating a more balanced feel to the painting as very few have been used straight from the tube. Most of the paint consists of several thin glazes of translucent colours built up on top of each other, this has helped produce an interesting depth to the colour instead of one flat tone. I feel it works particularly well for the castle .

One of the problems I had was making the dragon and castle part of the painting, I wanted to show the spark of a childs imagination and in creating this there were times when I doubted whether this was actually working, there was a kind of seperateness and disparity between all the elements of the painting and it was hard to work out the remedy . The smaller colour studies seemed to work, yet when painted larger I lost a bit of confidence with the idea.
This I have found is something that is occurring more and more with me . It seems the more I learn the harder it becomes. There is always so much to consider and I am my own worst critic . I very nearly gave up at this point and left the painting for a few days and thought on it a while .
I didn't want to completely disregard the painting as there are elements that I really like, but there were parts that needed a bit of work.
The dragon felt too separate for a start, I didn't want it to be REAL, as it is a figment of imagination so it seemed the best way to deal with this was manipulate the positioning, and by running a translucent wash over the boys leg it helped to create a connection between the two characters. I also used the same idea to create the castle .By running the colours into the background and creating subtle linework in white for some of the turrets helped to add to feeling of imagination .

My tutor agreed with me about the disparity between the separate elements of the painting.She suggested that I look through some of my previous workings as there were ways of bringing the whole painting together
I have taken another look and have tried a few things that I think have gone some way to solve this problem. The dragons tale I have wound over and through the boys legs which has helped draw the eye into the painting and therefore helps to create a link with the foreground .
The linking of the castle, dragon and boy has been a challenge, I have decided to very subtly paint the castle across the whole background and with subtle use of line incorporate the three images together as though they are all merging together. The ethereal nature of the painting allows for a subtle use of line to suggest and allows the imagination to do the work .