Tuesday, September 04, 2012

A Little Project


Monday Wash Day   10" x 12"   ..Oil / Panel

For the last couple of weeks, life and hot summer have been playing havoc with my life and painting timetable. Finally, I have been able to get some sort of semblance of my painting past . I am sure that this has happened at one time or other to all of us.

In this painting  I thought that I would try to do something a  little more different than the usual. Perhaps it is my excitement at "getting back at it" after a time of not smelling oil paint.

I set up a little project with limitations that I thought would be challenging and at the same time stretch my imagination.
The palette for this 'experiment' was, burnt umber, ultramarine blue, yellow ocher Venetian red and titanium white,  to start.
From here, the object was to mix different values of grey ( monochrome) from the ultra blue , burnt umber  and white.
With these grays, (warms and cools) I added or mixed the original limited palette (yellow ocher, blue, Venetian red ) and painted the scene, alla prima .

Okay, so I had to cheat a little...I added Prussian blue to my palette. As the painting developed. I found that the yellow ocher and ultramarine blue did not give me the value of green that I needed for the trees etc. ...Perhaps it was a little strong. Hmmm, live and learn.

It was a fun project and did stretch the imagination.

'til next..

4 comments:

David King said...

This is most excellent Frank. I think limited palette painting often look better than most unlimited paintings. It gets the message across without shouting it.

Frank A. said...

David King..

Dave, thanks for your comment. I am happy that you see the value in the limited palette. I agree with your "well put" assessment as well.
I hope that 'sketching' is going well for you and that you are still hard at it !

Take care..



Bruce Sherman said...

4Gidday Loner!... Glad to see you "out there"... pushin' it!

Thought I might see you... but I guess that you're still caught up in summer thingys!

We have a Paint Out here in Rockport weekend after this one. It was a great time last year!

Check out www.rockport1000islands.com for details if you're interested!

Good Painting!
Happy Trails!
Tonto

Frank A. said...

Thanks Bruce , will do ! Will check the schedule .. :-)he he

Perhaps others would be interested in this as well.

stay well..