Monday, October 20, 2014

Running Into Fall, 14x18


It was an experiment.

I got some unexpected energy last week.....pneumonia recovery is unpredictable....so I wondered what would happen if I painted a piece using only three colors.

There was an old plein air work hanging around that was done on a Montana autumn afternoon while deep in the forest.  It seemed a likely candidate to be put to the test.

In the Tuesday painting class I've been talking about using three primaries (red, blue, yellow), or colors close to primary, as a way to expand color mixing vocabulary.   On pieces I've done before like this the results have been intriguing.   For example, I like to paint in acrylic outdoors using only Thalo blue, Cadmium Yellow and Burnt Sienna.

Below is the original plein air sketch.  I've modified the scale, format and paint application to do the larger piece and I like the result.  Being a bit wider I think it better represents the sense of flow and the bottleneck caused by those two large boulders.

What colors?  Ultramarine Blue, Cadmium Red Medium and Quinacridone Gold. 


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