Friday, February 01, 2008

Ava's bigger sister, Beau...(caricature #2 ) oil

Well...finished Ava...and will repost it...but tonight did
the companion piece, Ava's sister, Beau...

I'll invite you to click on the larger image, for the real
fun I had you'll have to see larger. I found many places
to paint some blues and viridian...that I think really
excited the face and color, and enhance the feeling of
a strong backlight...

10"x 8" oil

3 comments:

Tim Bye said...

Hey Larry this is great! I really love how you use greens and blues in the face and skin tones. Are you working to a particular palette or how do you decide on when and where to use these?! Great work!

Larry Seiler said...

this was a more open palette Tim, that is...if you consider a limited palette open, but by that I basically just began with three main flesh tone values, a dark, mid and light...blocked in...then painted on the fly from there with gut hunch.

I've learned to look for color that I think many tend to overlook, which I've come to believe can send a piece over the top. Perhaps a habit from painting plein air, you just learn to see color others are not accustomed to seeing from photo references.

I paint often set up, looking toward the sun...backlighting tree masses and such, and you have two options...you can make the brilliance of the light silouette your subject, or as in this case with Beau...go nuts on contours with light, then see the light blocked from behind an opportunity to look for subtle hints of color. Indirect and reflected light bounce back up into such a subject...and especially flesh. So...I actually saw hints of green....hints of various blues, and decided to play it up to the hilt knowing it would add to the quality of the light.

Don't know if that explains well or not...
take care....thanks

Tim Bye said...

Makes sense - definitely seems to work in practice too - thanks Larry!