I like the deep colors

MAGIC happens when you stick to it and you’re not afraid.  AFRAID of painting, you say? Yes, sometimes it’s just good enough to let it go but you know there are “issues.”  I don't mean to imply that I created a masterpiece but I actually do have a feeling of completion that I can get when I challenge myself to stay with it until I can walk past her and not feel the urge to change something and I don’t cringe..  She was a little lopsided in the chair and the left side of the painting has the steep line of her arm unbroken so I had to make sure the other side had some balance and I had to get that not only with color but with value. There are color changes in the value range and I think that harmonizes as well as balances out her figure on the 12 x 16 canvas (3/4) Ratio. When I’m painting my mind is flashing between the two dimensional composition of the surface and then flips to the third dimension as I try to make the shoulder round into the background and make sure the pressure points of her body are touched with shades of a warm color so it suggests a real breathing person. 

This is a photograph of a young woman that I have done in the past but I always feel that I’m missing something either in the composition or in the color harmonies. In my more experienced years, I find it rewarding to revisit compositions I’ve done in the past.  My head KNOWS the dress is a deep blue and when I go down that road I just can’t seem to pull it together. It becomes too cool. Winslow Homer’s watercolors are masterful and dealing with what they call “local color” and the effect of the sun on it. It seems so simple, blue dress with the sun (yellow) on it makes it appear green….ah but the correct green and the sun isn’t the only thing enveloping the surface of the dress. On the other side of the sun there is the blue sky and perhaps a sullen cloud that are leaving a mark.  Anyway it’s a challenge so I combined the blue and a sunlit green and then found myself a little more comfortable taking the painting to a warmer direction everywhere. Of course I have factor in the wicker!  I do think figures sparkle in a warm palette and I am going to incorporate some version of yellow into most of my colors for awhile and try to make warmer vibrations coming off the surface of the canvas.  That area down in the lower left needed to be dark but a little lighter than the chair and when I mixed the yellow ochre into the magenta it not only darkened it but created a little bit of a vibration.  Often this is accomplished by mixing the complement or split completment into the color.

As I sit and stand at the easel while painting on this my mind visits a day several years ago, not too many, when I drove down from Napa to the Legion of Honor museum where they were having an exhibit of Anders Zorn paintings and pastels. If you don’t know him, do look him up. He painted mostly with 4 colors and two of them were black and white!  The other two were yellow ochre and some shade of red. Many people say it was cadmium red.  I personally can’t get cadmium red to do much. It seems dull. I should give it another try, though. My favorites are the light version of it and also I like the grumbacher red which is a cooler version.  There are definitely paintings of his that are in those limited four colors but when he does an outdoor scene he is able to get a green.  Yellow ochre and black will make a green but it’s a warm pea type green whereas he achieves a blue green when he’s painting vegetation near the water and my guess he’s going with a viridian. I must look and see if viridian was used in his day.  The history of color is so enlightening when you try to decipher the paintings in the historical context.   

Well I will close for now. I like this painting and I did put it in my online store if you’re interested www.sallyrosenbaumfineart.com and also www.sallyrosenbaumartgroup.com.  It’s also available as a cover on writing books sold exclusively on amazon. Www.amazon.com/author/sallyrosenbaumfineart. Until next time when I give some serious thought to painting a very very large painting.