Lisa Bower

Red Barn, oil on canvas

Nice one, Lisa! Great green/red complementary colour combo, subtly done—glad you didn’t use a Kermit the Frog green in the foreground. The drawing of the barn itself is just about spot on—nice and cris, too, except does the peak of the roof actually overlap like that? I wouldn’t know. I do feel its placement is a little odd with it nearly touching the edges of the painting, aided by the road and the top of the trees all pointing to that spot.

Maybe if you made a subtle swooping curve in the road swinging from left to right to left, it would help there and bring our attention to that beautiful little spot of light behind the barn highlighting the sheep, which I think you could make more of and is the real hidden jewel of this painting. Because there’s not a lot happening in the background blue you could afford to crop an inch or two off the top without losing anything. My rule of thumb is that if it’s not adding anything to the design then you might as well leave it out. Overall, you’ve got a good painting here, but there are some things for you to think about.