Water Lilies, oil 

 

Louise Villegas
Hi Louise, lovely work. Those pink blooms sitting on that cool, luminous water are instantly engaging, and I like the soft gradation from dark to light up the canvas. The warm-cool play between the lily pads (cool greens in shadow, warmer yellow-greens catching light) feels convincing, and your edge variety on those is spot on: softer in the distance. I recommend trying to paint with fewer brushstrokes to avoid the paint surface looking overworked and softened. Then you can add some much thicker paint in the foreground to add more interest and also help create depth by contrasting with the smoother paint in the back of the scene. Beautiful, serene piece. Well done.

Water Lilies, watercolor and gouache 

Eric Hillmer
Hi Eric, this has a lovely, tranquil mood and a strong sense of light. Those warm reds popping against the cool violets and blues are doing great focal point work. To push this further, try broadening the value structure: deepen a few of the darkest darks in the water (particularly around the outside of the scene) to increase depth and make the lit pads feel brighter. Consider softening more of the pad edges in the distance and reserving your crispest, hardest edges for the main red bloom and its nearest pads; right now many edges compete equally. You could also glaze a subtle, cooler note into the background pads to help them recede, and introduce a touch of reflected red into adjacent pads to harmonize the focal color. Your most distant pads need flattening out to help create more depth. Lovely work—just a bit more edge control and value contrast will make this sing!

Water Lilies 

Elena Sokolova 
Hi Elena, what a serene, luminous piece—you’ve really captured that cool, tranquil pond light, and the soft glazes give the water a lovely sense of depth and movement. I especially enjoy the lost-and-found edges on the lily pads and the delicate pinks sitting against those deep blues! I’d like to see you use a finer rigger or long dagger brush for those thin details in the stalks; the key skill there is to get the paint just thin enough (and to load the brush smoothly) so that it can glide off the brush in a single crisp stroke. Beautiful work—keep exploring those subtle temperature shifts and edge variety.

Monet’s lily pond

Ian States
Hi Ian, lovely job capturing the serenity of the pond. The soft willows, dappled reflections and those delicate pinks on the lilies all sing, and Monet’s turquoise bridge makes a strong, cheerful focal point. I think Monet would approve! To deepen the space, consider pushing the shadows under the background trees a touch cooler in contrast to the warmth in the foreground water. Your lily pad ellipses are working well, but I’d like to see those further back flattening out a little more. The effects of distance on shapes and colors in a landscape get exponentially more pronounced the closer it is to the horizon; it’s not a linear progression. Said another way, there’s more distance contained within one inch down from the horizon than there is from the bottom of that inch to your feet. It helps me to remember that when painting landscapes. Beautiful work, I can feel the sunlight!