Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Marquette...Presque Isle, West shores...

The week previous, tried taking my wife along painting, but for whatever reason was a particular target and interest to the black biting flies.  I had a few land...but she was their main meal interest!!!  So, I ended up in the harbor where winds were right.  The week following, winds were cooperative, and I set up at one of my favorite areas for workshops, teaching and so forth...this the west shores of the Presque Isle park of Marquette.



Here is my palette set up, as I am working on another Artist Network University course dealing with limited palette color strategies...and the intention then here was to work with a split-complementary palette...

above you see my reference...my model. Painting is significantly personal, and the outcome which stems on the beginning most fun to anticipate. By choosing a dominant color as I did (this particular blue), and setting up the palette as I have, it will lead then to a most predictable outcome.

Above is my palette, perhaps about 2/3's done with the painting... There are a number of ways to approach using the split-complementary direction...but, my favorite is to simply "pretend"...that is...once I choose my dominant color judging light, most prevalent present color...in this case the blue I mixed from my existing colors you see on my palette surrounding, that will be the blue I will limited my mixing to from here on. The cooler red...and yellow that leans slightly toward green, again all mixed from the existing surrounding colors. I mixed enough to anticipate painting the entire painting. These colors, as I said...I "pretend" are like my normal red, yellow and blue...as the common colorwheel assigns their primary position. You will get a different orange, mixing a yellow/green to a cool violet like red, but the point to bear in mind is that this palette sets up a relative environment that imbues a forced and natural working harmony into all the colors mixed. Now...you can choose to set the colors up darker in value, eliminating use of black, or use black on the palette as I have here...with the traditional white for tinting, or black for shading, arriving thus at "tone" Or...you can key it to your darkest value possible as is...and with these as seen would be higher in key. I have used a limite amount of black in shadows, but overall you can see how the painting has spark...a sense of light present. and, here we have the finished painting... 12"x 16" oil on linen


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