Wednesday, January 13, 2016

Grasses

When I began this piece, I blocked in the background grasses first and painted a base for the foreground grasses. After living with the painting for a while, the background grasses didn't feel right. Some blades were too defined and drew attention from the cats and the overall color was a bit dreary. I just wasn't buying it.
Wanting to keep some of the feel of the grasses especially on the right side above the cat's tail, I used naples yellow as a base and glazed the whole top half with liquin. As I moved across the painting some glazed sections have raw umber, more yellow, some grays. After one coat, I knew it wasn't enough. Yes, it lightened and had the desired effect of softening the look but it only went part of the direction I envisioned.
Time for more glazing.


Above is the completed upper grass section. (Note: it looks much lighter in the center because of my studio lights. The actual color is fairly even throughout.)

Next step: finish the foreground grasses. The center section is almost done.

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