Friday, February 15, 2008

Feb 15 - Finished with the Citrus Heritage Plein Air

How time flies! Yesterday was the commercial version of loving someone (Valentine's Day), and we showed our love for our friends by going to dinner with another couple, laughing and enjoying the time we have together. Our pleasure in being with others we care about ought not be just an occasional occurrence, don't you think?
Tonight I share my life, my art and my teaching with the opening of the first workshop here in my new studio. It's ready, I'm ready and I have such high hopes for every attendee's success.
Here's the finished 12 x 12 plein air acrylic painting of the Citrus Heritage Park vista toward Corona, California. Several of you wrote expressing concern about the palm tree line matching the distant mountains, but perhaps that isn't so important now that the focus and details of the foreground have been set in place. The line of palms doesn't bother me that much now.
Darkening down the foreground shadows brings the eye to the path area and the edge of the grove, yet paths of lighter, sunlit trees allow the viewer to transition upward to the more distant vista. I had to use glazing with burnt umber, thalo green and ultramarine blue to get those darker shadows. This painting is supporting a complementary color scheme of yellow green and violet, a color scheme that has not had much favor until the last 20 years. It still hasn't edged out the blue/orange theme yet, but is gaining ground.

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