Category: Composition

Line & Color, vii

The Final Pictures

The final decision was to attempt to darken the middle flower and create more light / dark contrast. Don’t think it works. The other choice was to move from more warm at the base of the painting to cooler on top. Washes of yellows and yellowy-pinks went in, from bottom to top. Purple-blues were overlaid the very top flower.

To a degree, I think this warm-to-cool saves the painting, but the lost contrast in the middle flower weakens it as a whole. The contrasts between the red and green of the leaves helps, but doesn’t save it. The B&W below shows this quite clearly.

Line & Color, vi

PINKS – Too Much?

Second layering of pinks added, cool and warm, and more of the original underlying light pink. The photo below shows where the painting is currently – and I am not happy at all! The big middle flower disappears into the background of leaves – it has lost its sparkle. The reason is pretty simple: the flower now is the same value as the leaves. Rats!

I was looking at this picture last night, and it took me awhile to realize what had happened. Here is another way to test the values (shades of grey) in a picture – take a digital photograph in black and white, or turn your color image into a B&W image in a software program. Problem is immediately apparent, as you can see below.

Before Second Layer of Pink

After Second Layer of Pink

The lesson here is twofold. First, layering more of one color, or other colors, can create this problem. Second is to think ahead from now on. Experiment with colors, take a picture, look. Better yet, analyze the picture and then see if my camera bears out my theory!

In painting, value is the hardest for me to “get.” B&W photos help me see this better. Last night, I put the picture on the door to look at it. It seemed dull and uninteresting. I looked, and looked, and then looking at my earlier photos, I realized what had happened.

The next question is – to darken up the central flower, or to lighten it with white? Darken the leaves? Hmmmm.

Line & Color, v

PINK

With the basic foundations of warm and cold greens laid down, time to paint the flowers. Pink seems to be more summery to me, so pink it will be! I will be using a total of three pinks. The foundation pink is neither too blue nor too red, and so will be the underpainting for the warm and cold pink to be applied later. This picture shows several layers of the same pink – the darker the pink, the more layers of color. The palest areas are single color layers. The medium pinks are two to three layers of color. The darkest have up to six.

The detailed picture will give you a better idea of some of the subtle differences of one, two, or more layers. The smaller flowers have only one to two color layers – see the slight changes in color density?

Line & Color, iv

COLD GREEN

Once the warm green dried – and more than one layer of it in some areas – it was time to add the cool green. This green is a viridian or phthalo green, so there is a bluish tint to it. The next picture shows the pale layers before they begin to build up. Warm and cool greens begin to meet.

Subsequent layers – two or three more -begin to show the intensity of the colors, as well as areas where warm and cool work together to show the underside of a leaf, such as on the far right side. Mottling is done to see how warm and cool will work together underneath yet another layer of green. Below you will see a leaf with a lighter, warmer green center surrounded by cooler green.

Line & Color, iii

WARM GREENS

The paper for this project is a handmade kozo paper. It is a thin, lightweight paper. One purpose of this painting adventure is to test how the paper handles repeated thin washes of color – bleeding? wearing? weakening of the fibers? So far, it is holding up beautifully, and does not seem to be buckling or pilling with the layers of color. The natural color of the paper is a very pale warm beige.

The key to layering colors is not to put them on too wet – that is, making sure the brush is damp but not wet. Then, pick up some of the color, blot the brush a little, and then onto the paper. I start toward the central areas, just in case the brush is wetter than I think it is, and if there is some bleeding, it won’t leak out into areas I want white or another color. The brush I am using is a very small brush, and the bristles are cat hair! It comes to a very fine, delicate point, even when wet, with a nice resiliance to it, even loaded with water and color.

The following picture illustrates the beginning of layering of a warm green over the yellows. This warm yellow was applied over both cool and warm yellows, to see the effects of the underlying yellow on the now overlying green. Some areas of the leaves were not evenly covered so that when the cooler green is applied, some variation of warm and cool will hopefully appear.

Follows is a detail of one of the leaves, so you can see the variations within a leaf.