Friday, October 30, 2015

Kathy's Red Scarf, 14x18


The approach of winter....
.....brings with it the switch to working indoors more often.  In this case it was painting Kathy who came to sit for our weekly group.  I couldn't tell if she reminded me of elf or someone getting a jump on the coming cold.  (Kidding, Kathy, you did a good job.)

Driving to the model session I began to wonder how much I purple I could work into a portrait and still make it work.  I had two different ones with me just because I threw a handful of paint tubes into my bag as I was heading out the door...but I can't remember what they were.

Knowing how they would likely effect the color I overstated the reds and yellows at the beginning and then worked in the purple as much as I thought I could get away with it.  It didn't take much of the stuff to twist the colors to grays so I had to be careful.  For example, that background is brilliant yellow, purple and white.

I had fun with this one and it went along pretty easily.  Sometimes I like to leave unpainted parts of the canvas.  I think it's because it retains the magic of how a flat panel can begin to look so dimensional with a few strokes of value and color.   It's only paint.

Less than two months until the days begin to get longer.  Yes, I'm counting.

Thanks for looking!