Monday, September 30, 2019

Not so fast

Today I started painting a new piece. The composition will be a bit tricky with the ice but at least the sky was pretty straightforward.
Mixing just the right color I went to work brushing it on. Unlike most of my skies, the most effective way to represent this sky was with a single mixed color applied with differing thicknesses over the toned background.
After carefully blending the brushstrokes I stepped back. No, the color was too light.
Okay, I'll just mix a darker color and blend it in. All blended with a soft brush and I stepped back.
 No, the color was too blue.

At this point, the easiest thing to do was scrape off all the paint and remix a new color. Some of the old color would remain which in this case would be fine. New color mixed, applied, and blended with my soft brush (which was now pretty thick with paint so I also used another blending brush.)
 I stepped back. No, not right.

I scraped off the paint and took a lunch break.

With renewed focus I returned to my easel. I've known all along the color I wanted but my head was getting in the way. It is a color which on the palette does not look like it belongs in the sky. My artist eyes knew in this painting it did. A remix and it worked. The whole process was not as fast as I had thought it would be because I had to let go.


Detail

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