Tuesday, July 04, 2006

July 4 - Lesson Painting Finished!


"Keeping Cool" a 12 x 16 demonstration painting for the daily painting group, now finished. Contrast this with the July 3 work, and you'll see how much has been detailed out and adjusted to give your eye something to enjoy in every part of the canvas. There are small areas of rest for the eyes, like the upper right bluish corner, and the larger tree leaves above the riders, but the rest of the canyon and stream area are full of visual brushwork excitement.
Note the use of the warm thalo blue on the jeans (nowhere else) to bring your eye to the figures, and the use of alizarin in the light shirt of the left rider. This is intentional, to bring you to the focal point. The flashes of ultramarine blue and white in the lower right and on the left of the riders are "hop scotch spots" for your eye to travel through the painting. I bet you can find more!
You'll see that I haven't strayed far from the original rough structure, which still holds up, even though the layers on top and brushwork have made the structure less important. You can easily see it by squinting your eyes almost closed. That abstract structure really, REALLY matters!

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