Mysterious Thrills

Ink Drawing - Created during The Butterfly Project performance
New Jersey Performing Arts Center, Newark, New Jersey
June 6, 2009
Link to journal entry: Mysterious Thrills

Cargo Pants

Sketching in Old Lyon, France

Link to journal entry "Travel Tips for Artists - Cargo Pants"

No time to be fussy

Link to journal entry on wordpress.com

Rapeseed Fields in Southern France

Link to journal entry
Third Time Around

Mother's Day

Watercolor Sketch painted in Arles, France. Cafe La Nuit, painted by Van Gogh.

Link to journal entry... Mother's Day

Cypress Trees in Southern France

Link to journal entry

An adventure in France

My dear friend, Mlle. Jane, treated me to a trip to France!

Over the next few weeks I will post sketches, photos, paintings and rambling thoughts on my wordpress blog. Each time I add a new post, I will also post an image and a link on this blog.

Link to today's post on wordpress.com

Bad Link

Sorry for the bad link on the last post.

Here is the link to my wordpress blog: chriscarterart.wordpress.com

A Shift in Direction

Trying once again to simplify my life, I have decided to try wordpress for my illustrated journal blog. After visiting Alexis and Nicole's blogs, it appeared that I might find it might suit my needs a bit better. I'm not sure how wordpress and blogger are related, but I was able to import all of the posts on this blog into my new blog. On occasion, I will post to this blog, but probably not more than once a month.

I believe it is easier to subscribe to the wordpress blog. You will find a "Blog" drop down button in the upper right corner that allows you several options including subscribing. My new blog is Third Time Around at chriscarterart.wordpress.com.

Over the next couple of months I am working on a large commissioned piece. I doubt that I will post paintings on Ebay during this time. I might simply vanish until late Spring when I will offer Creativity Workshops and Painting Workshops from my home studio.

Image: Maggie Segale - oil on paper

One Hung, One to go

I'm cutting it close. The paintings must be dropped off at Wing's Conservatory before noon on Saturday. The paint will still be wet when the color studies are hung. Fortunately the paintings are oil on paper and need to be matted and framed under glass, protecting the wet paint from being smeared by curious fingers. Within an hour or two I will have completed the last of the little color studies and will begin cutting mats and framing.

Working four days a week at the prop shop has forced me into a discipline of scheduling my time carefully. Another benefit, aside from that of a regular paycheck, is the pruning of priorities. Over the past five years I have spent a great deal of time on marketing that has not proven to move me toward my goal of becoming a better painter. Ultimately, learning to paint with clean, fresh, exciting color that suggests moods, atmospheric conditions and excitement will bring me far greater satisfaction than adding more exhibits to my resume.

I look forward to disappearing from the public eye for awhile.

Image: Ellen Mihalick, painted over black & white, giclee print of photograph by Elayne Wishart.

Eric Ortega

The energy and movements of Eric Ortega have been an inspiration to me since I began painting him four or five years ago. He inspired my spontaneous Zakar Art work and now the first oil painting of him. The exhibit Reflections of a Dancer opens next weekend at Wings Conservatory in Chester, New Jersey. Along with a selection of my watercolor paintings and Zakar paintings, a series of color studies created from the photographs of Elayne Wishart will be presented. This study of Eric is one of the paintings that will be on display. The exhibit is a fund raising event for the Butterfly Project. For more information on the Butterfly Project, click here.

Reflections of a Dancer - Exhibit at Wings Conservatory

First Image: underpainting
Second Image: first glaze over underpainting.

The exhibit, Reflections of a Dancer, opens at Wings Conservatory in Chester on March 7th, 2009. The exhibit will raise funds for The Butterfly Project, supporting children's cancer research.

The technique used in the color studies I have created for this exhibit is new to me. The images were taken from the beautiful photographs of Elayne Wishart whose work will also be shown in the exhibit along with the work of Deb Gichan and Ana Tatoris. Using the traditional technique of underpainting and glazing, I first used the computer to transform Elayne's color photographs into black and white photographs. I then printed giclee prints and painting the initial underpainting (first image posted here) directly onto the print. I felt like a hack doing that. My goal was to play with color and glazes on figures as I did on landscapes last year. Taking the time to redraw the images of twelve paintings for a fund raising exhibit was not part of the plan, especially when the images themselves were not originally mine. Still, it worked against my grain to simply paint over someone else's photographs. These paintings are not just inspired by Elayne's work, they are, beneath the surface of paint, Elayne's work. So be it. I have learned what I set out to learn by this experiment, that complementary colors in an underpainting does not always work as well with interior/figure work as with landscapes. Analagous colors glazed over the surfaces of walls, backgrounds and flesh worked a bit better for me.

However, struggling through the color studies, nuances of color were suggested that I would not have thought to experiment with and will lead to further studies. Heaven forbid I find myself at a dead end of exploration. I had planned for the orange underpainting in many of the studies (not shown here) to be obliterated by the glazes. Instead, I left a great deal of orange as it added energy to the work. The flesh tones often conflicted with the walls and had to be adjusted. I will choose the colors for the underpaintings differently the next time I work on figures in an interior.

All in all, it was a delightful experiment and I am grateful to Elayne for allowing me to use her work for this small series of color studies.

For Exhibit information visit www.chriscarterart.com and click on the link for schedule of events.

Transformation of a Painting

The top painting began as the painting below. I thought I had resolved the painting, cleaned my palette and brushes, shut off the lights and returned home. Next morning when I arrived back at the studio I noticed that the dark spaces between the branches of one of the larger trees on the right was too dark in value and came forward rather than recede. I thought it would be simple enough to make the adjustment. One small adjustment led to another. I added a bit more definition to the small, isolated tree in the mid-ground area on the far right. I lost the subtlety I had liked in the grassy area. The painting lost its spark for me.

I'm not sure what happened next. Perhaps I began making a few more adjustments. At some point, the painting began to take on a new life, a far more vibrant life than the original version. The image began to have a heartbeat and I responded by giving it air to breath and space through which to move. I have had this experience many times while painting with watercolor, but only recently have I experienced it while oil painting.

Transformation is thrilling. Allowing the painting to go in a totally new direction resulted in a far stronger painting.

Abandon

Creating Freddie the Cockroach for Andrea Kramer's Butterfly Project delighted me. After painting in oil for the past eight months, returning to watercolor refreshed my sense of spontaneity with paint.

Unveiled - the Anatomy of a Painting which hung at Monsoon Gallery in Bethlehem throughout the month of October is now behind me. I am pleased by Geoff Gehman's review in the Morning Call.

Visual Arts

By Geoff Gehman of The Morning Call November 2, 2008

FIVE ELEMENTS, FIVE SKILLS

Chris Carter's show at Monsoon is a showcase of five artistic elements: color, line, shape, texture and value. It's also a showcase of her five-tool talents.

The resident of Califon, N.J., is a versatile, canny portraitist. Nicole, an extreme closeup in oil, features a fiery curtain of hair over one eye, a snaking blue shadow over the other eye and an air of fragile mystery. Watercolor/acrylics of nude women are splashy, tattooed landscapes. A pastel of a skeleton has glowing teal bones, a clever carnival touch.

Especially engaging is Between Here and There, a series of oils of fields, forests and roads. Carter easily blends lacily veiled hues, slaloming perspectives and bubbling macadam.

Carter's drawings are just as dynamic. Inky squiggles of dancers are charmingly breezy; a pencil illustration of a boy dreaming of adventures with his collie is just plain charming.

Getting around to Playing

After working for about six hours on the two paintings of Gaudi's walls of brick and stone I felt tight and lacking in creativity. It is one thing to look intently at a scene in front of me and to respond to the details that I pull out of the reality. It is quite another to study a photograph with the same intensity. Photographs are terribly limited when it comes to color. They can't help it. The color is created by pigment, not light. Translating pigment to pigment is quite different from translating light into pigment.

After deciding it was time to stop working on the brick and stones, to let the paintings dry and hope for a bit more energy to come from the next layer of glazing, my choice was to lock up shop and go home or to paint the first layer of glaze onto the last of the Road Series canvases. I had decided to use the painting Morning Dance as inspiration and to see what might happen. The painting is not at blue as it appears here.

With simplicity in mind I began to paint; I began to smile, to feel that rush of pleasure when something unexpected begins to happen. My fatigue vanished and I followed the muse. The final painting is another example of how working on a series results in breaking through barriers and finding myself in a new, unexplored territory. I adore simplicity, yet it is so difficult for me to express well. This painting is finished and I am delighted with the results.

Interior of the Sagrada Familia, Barcelona, Spain

Image #1: Charcoal drawing on canvas.
Image #2: Underpainting
Image #3: First layer of glaze in the bottom, right corner.
Image #4: First layer of glaze completed.

Two days after the show at Monsoon comes down, the show in Pennington opens. The October sunshine is calling to me and I must resist the temptations to pack my paints and head to the woods. The architectural paintings along with four more of the road series must be completed and at least dry to the touch to hang by November 1st. Painting the amazing tree-like columns of Gaudi's Sagrada Familia is as close as I'll get to painting in the woods this week.
Though my palette is the same that I used for the Road Series, the mixes are more neutral in this first glaze of paint over the underpainting. I enjoyed a break from the greens of the landscapes. Not much of a break, considering I worked on landscapes yesterday and will work on at least one tomorrow if all goes well with the next layer of glazing on the remaining two architectural paintings.

Straube Center Fall Art Show

The exhibit at Monsoon Gallery closes on November 5th and the exhibit at Straube Center opens on November 7th.

Several of the paintings that have been posted over the past five months were not included in the current exhibit at Monsoon Gallery. I eliminated half a dozen from the Road Series and all of the architectural series. The architectural series, inspired by the works of Gaudi, will hang in the Straube Center Exhibit.

Venus as Garbo

Sunday morning, 10am. All the paintings are framed and packaged... except for one, Venus as Garbo, the climactic painting of the upcoming exhibit. For over a year I have stressed over the presentation of this painting.

It is difficult for me, when I am working on a painting, to analyze the composition pretending not to see six inches around the edges. This is the challenge that presents itself when I am painting on an unstretched canvas. This has been the dilemma with Venus as Garbo. To present it without losing the perimeter would mean to turn it into a wall-hanging or a canvas stretched like the skin of an animal to a framework outside of itself. I came to the painful decision that I had to forfeit the outside six inches of the painting and stretch it.

Good news... the decision was made. Bad news.... stretchers do not come in the sizes I need. Fine. I'll make my own stretchers out of some frame molding that I will never use for frames. I'll skip the next several good news/bad news events that led to this morning's struggle to make the wrong materials do the right thing.

I was in a wonderful state of mind having spent all of yesterday with Alexis at the Dodge Poetry Festival. Tom had ripped the extensions of the fill-in molding that I had glued to the frame molding the day before. I met Tom at the shop and he set me up to use the belt sander to even the edging of the homemade stretcher strips. He then left to work with Alexis grouting the newly laid tiles at home.

The sanding went well as did the re-cutting of the strips on the chop saw. Then came the assembly. It was impossible for me to make accurate diagonal measurements of the stretcher frame. I did the best I could, squaring each side and adding cross pieces for internal support. All this was done against the rounded edges of the round-edged frame molding that I cut inverted so as to leave the outside squared. The final result, at that point, was that one side was 3/8 inch longer than the other in spite of the fact that they started off equal lengths. I decided to glue the corners for added inflexibility and poured a cup of coffee with which to regain my balance while the glue dried. Hah!

With perfect timing, Tom and Alexis arrived back at the studio having completed their task of grouting. Neither one of them had found it to be a pleasant job. With Alexis as another body and another set of arms, we re-measured the frame and discovered that the diagonal dimensions were off by over half an inch. Not good. Unscrew everything and start again........

How wonderful it would be to leave the framing and stretching of artwork to professionals. I really don't know how artists afford to do solo exhibits (50 - 70 works) if they don't do the framing themselves.

With Alexis as moral support and an uncomplaining helper, Venus as Garbo was stretched over the re-adjusted framework of make-shift framing molding. We sandwiched it between protective layers of corrugated cardboard and added her to the pile of paintings ready to be loaded into the car on Thursday morning.

Preparing for this exhibit has been a marvelous journey. The left side of my brain and the right side of my brain worked as partners, each getting out of the other's way at the right time and stepping in again only when needed. I didn't think such a collaboration was possible.

Such a revalation leads me, of course, to taking on even greater challenges. What fun!

Painting Out the Road

How refreshing.

As the painting developed, the road became less significant. During the final stages, nothing about the road worked anymore, the shape, the value, the color.... , it had served its purpose of being the seed and it was time for the road to vanish and vanish it did.

Clinging to elements in a painting that no longer work can be disastrous to the final outcome of a painting. Flexibility, willingness to allow the painting itself to begin dictating the resolution of composition, of color, of character and personality is an essential part of the creative process. Knowing exactly what the outcome should be and making sure that it turns out that way negates any chance of creativity being part of the process.

In order for a canvas to develop a personality, a direction of its own, a painter must start somewhere, plant the seed, do all she can to nurture the seed and then let go of the controls when she sees that something other than a duck has hatched out of the egg! For those of you who missed out on the joy of sitting on your mother's lap and listening to her read to you, I'm making reference to The Ugly Duckling by Hans Christian Andersen.

On The Road #1

On The Road #1 was the first of the series Between Here and There. This painting has undergone more drastic changes than any other painting in the series.

The first glaze, a light value glaze of cool blue convinced me that I would, in spite of my doubts, enjoy the technique of glazing. I thought the composition was strong and I looked forward to the dramatic impact of the final painting. The second glaze, the glaze applied over the trees and over both the sky and the road, also went well. Without hesitation, except for the week of drying time between glazes, I applied the third glaze, a darker blue of the sky and a variety of greens on the trees. I did not plan for my emotions, so terribly susceptible to the moods of those around me and to the pressures of daily life, to take control of the painting. Without realizing it I changed a perfectly calm and evocative mood into one of frenzy and discord. The clouds shot diagonally across the narrow canvas in a state of frenzy.

At the next sitting, I painted out the lower clouds believing I could taming the energy of the upper clouds to my advantage. I was wrong. During the next sitting I painted the clouds out completely and pruned the tree on the right significantly. The following session involved further pruning of the trees on the left and total removal of the tree on the right. I was getting into a more Zen state. In addition, time had passed since I had started the series of Sky,Road and Trees. I'd grown quite weary of the subject and needed to do something drastic just for the fun of it.

During the past few days I've been reflecting on the direction of my painting. How does representational work really fit into my life, or does it at all? In the September 2nd Twice-Weekly Letter by Robert Genn wrote about refocusing on what one's passions were as a child. With that in mind I went back into the painting with a lighter touch, adding happier colors into the sky and allowing the trees to be more playful. At this point, the road seems to have very little to do with the painting. I will deal with that at the next sitting.

Perspective

The ruins of Torre Salvana, Castle Santa Coloma de Cervello inspired the composition of the painting. My intention is simplicity, a few open passageways that lead the eye to the other side of thick walls. The dominant element is shape, mostly high key (light) rectangular shapes accented with triangular, low-key (dark) shadow shapes. The color is meant to be playful and not distracting.

Simple? No. Any painting that is not totally abstract tests my drawing skills. In this case, it is the ability to manipulate perspective. The ruins of the 12th century castle that sits high on a hill above the small village of Colonia, Spain is an M. C. Escher dream, or a C. R. Carter nightmare depending on my ability to control my love of mathematical puzzling.

I thank James Paterno, my eighth grade algebra teacher for fueling my passion for the manipulation of figures and shapes. With little more than a devilish smile he jumped from complex equations to drawing a “sniffer” using only geometric shapes.

My dad, trained as an electrical engineer, I can thank for my dedication to perspective. Before he could even think about liking one of my paintings, he would point out any aspect of the drawing that was not in proper perspective and comment on the lines that were not perfectly straight. Good old Dad. It was only three years ago that he opened his heart to my abstract work. In spite of his criticism he always offered to loan me his ruler. He encouraged me to face the challenge of drawing and painting and to learn the necessary skills to draw buildings and objects “properly”. Now it is my turn to challenge him. At the age of eighty-five he is beginning to see the beauty in crooked lines.

For me, the world around me formed a mosaic of abstract forms, lines that danced, unrestricted across fields, city streets and through forests. Shapes expanded and contracted like sheets billowing on a windy day, held back from flight by only a couple of wooden clothespins. I’ve always had a strong sense of line, shape and value, balancing them precariously on my page so as not to lose the sense of rhythm and motion that I love, or to diminish the space created on my page, a space so vast I get lost in it. Though I prefer painting abstractly, I return to representational painting to exercise my power of observation.

The painting of Torre Salvana will only appear simple if the outlying walls are drawn correctly. The central archway presented an optical illusion that has caused me to redraw the structure each time I have added another layer of glaze. I thought I had solved all of the perspective in the original charcoal sketch. How wrong I was!

The painting is finally taking shape and the walls are opening up allowing that ambiguous space I love so dearly to fill the gaps between stone and brick while still giving an illusion of a flat shapes upon a flat surface.

Cooped up too long or .... working from photographs

I've reached my limit. I've grown weary of working from photographs. There is so much more color in the three-dimensional world lit by the light of the sun, and even the illumination from a light bulb. Photographs are so dreary compared with the richness of reflected light rays.

Bricks and mortar are a delightful change from sky, trees and road. The only green I am mixing is a grayed-green for the mortar. I find that working over the umber/white underpainting is not nearly as entertaining as working over a complementary underpainting. For the third architectural piece in the exhibit, the interior of Gaudi's Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, I have painted the underpainting in yellow-oranges and violet-blues. I'm not sure it will be completed in time to be hung, but I'm not going to rush it. The underpainting is a bit thicker and will need a longer period of time to dry thoroughly before glazing.

There is no fast track to the point of exhaustion when working on a series of paintings such as the Road Series "Between Here and There". It is only at the point of exhaustion, the point where I find myself painting by rote, not exploring and solving problems, that I break through the barrier of painting the way I think it should be painted and enter the marvelous world of new habits, fresher color and unique vision. The new habits and the fresh approach will be carried to the next series of paintings "The Clothesline".

During the war in Vietnam, comedian Dick Gregory gave up eating solid food. The war lasted far longer than expected and Gregory lost an enormous amount of weight and became extremely fit. When the war finally came to an end, he vowed that the next time he protested by way of his dietary habits he would camp out next to a fruit and vegetable stand and eat constantly for the duration of the protest. For my next series, "The Clothesline" I vow to paint outdoors each and every day and to use sketches and color studies rather than photographs! I have never liked working from photographs and painting from them over the past several months has not altered my attitude.

Painting from life does not necessarily mean that painting out of habit doesn't happen. Naturally, it does. The difference is that the light is constantly changing, shadows moving, leaves rustling and branches swaying. Nothing is truly fixed. The way I mix my colors may become rote if I'm not careful, but there is a tendency to be more inventive. The colors that I see before me will always be like a fresh turn of a kaleidoscope, never quite the same, in the same combinations, as I've seen before.

Image: Cellar ceiling of the Palau Guell in Barcelona, Spain. Designed by Gaudi
Link to other architectural paintings from this series

Unveiled - The Anatomy of a Painting

October 3rd - November 5th 2008

Monsoon Gallery
11 East 3rd Street
Bethlehem, PA 18015

PH: (610) 866-6600

www.MonsoonGalleries.com

Link to Press Release

Opening Reception: First Friday - Oct. 3rd 7-10 pm
Music by singer/songwriter Maria Woodford!

Link to progress of paintings to be exhibited.

A unique exhibit introducing the Five Elements of Art in both representational and abstract paintings. By appointment, I will guide small groups through the exhibit. School groups are encouraged to attend. Please call the gallery for scheduling.

Yoga/Art workshops will also be offered at the gallery during the month of October. Space is limited. Each workshop focuses on one of the Five Elements of Art. No previous yoga or art experience necessary. All supplies will be provided.

Portrait of Nicole

The glazing technique excites me more each day. When I return to plein air painting in the fall, I am fairly certain that I will begin with a quick drying underpainting in acrylic. Glazing over underpaintings allows me to easily keep colors clean and lively.

Though the flesh tones in the portrait of Nicole are a bit pasty, I don't think there will be a problem in adjusting them to more pleasing tones. The turquoise underpainting of the hair masses has worked well with the glaze of red. Nicole adjusted her natural brown hair color to this fabulous red hue many years ago and I think it suits her perfectly.

The painting will dry for a week before I go back into it with another layer of glazes. At that point I will focus on developing the form around the nose, eyes and mouth. I will also paint in the basic forms of the necklace. Most likely, the final glaze will highlight areas of the hair, make final adjustments to facial features and add loose but careful definition to the necklace.

Image: Portrait of Nicole, oil on masonite panel

Link to Page on Website featuring progress of portrait paintings

Progress

The early stages of the portrait of belly dancer Rachel Brice expressed an energy and spontaneity that I did not want to risk losing. After allowing the under painting to dry for a week, I liked the blue color of her skin and had no desire to begin the layers of glazing. My curiosity won out and I had to see what would happen when I began to apply more color. Besides, I was rather tired of mixing greens for the landscapes I have been working on. Getting back to the movements of a dancing body was a welcome change.

Pushing a painting further challenges my ability to manipulate color and brushstrokes and to correct the drawing with simplicity in mind. Pushing a painting to another level also tests my intuitive instincts to know when to stop, to know when a painting has made a statement that engages the viewer to keep the communication going. If the painting has the last word, it has reached the point of boredom. The viewer will move on with no intention of returning to finish the conversation.

At this point, I think the painting will require at least two more layers of glazes.

Image: Portrait of Rachel Brice
Oil on wood panel 10 1/2" x 14"

Link to page on website featuring progress of portrait paintings

Ruins of the Castle at Santa Coloma de Cervello

In 2004 Nicole and I ventured southwest of Barcelona to the small village of Santa Coloma de Cervello to visit the Eglesia de la Colonia Guell, the village church designed by Gaudi and built in the early 1900's. From 1898 until construction began in 1908 Gaudi worked on developing a system using hanging strings and bags filled with pellets to determine the arch supports needed for his organic, irregular design of the interior columns. The success of his method in Santa Coloma de Cervello led to the design and construction of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona.

On the outskirts of town, the ruin of a castle, the Torre Salvana of Santa Coloma de Cervello captured our curiosity. It sat high on a hill above sun-parched fields. The root of a gigantic tree carved a lace-like pattern out of the bleached blue sky. The castle spoke of an earlier time when the air was not filled with a muffled silence. There was something about the castle that drew us nearer to it and caused us to linger for well over an hour. To get to the castle we had crossed over the parched fields from the road that led away from Gaudi's Eglasia de la Coloma Guell toward the train station. We left the ruins by way of an ordinary path that led to a road that led to a formal entrance upon which hung a sign that indicated that we had trespassed. Oh well. The castle inspired a sense of starkness. Rather than paint an image of the Salvana Tower, the main feature by which the castle is know, I have chosen to focus on the abstracted features highlighted by that early afternoon sun.

While researching the castle I stumbled upon a few blogs written by individuals who have visited Barcelona and the outlying areas. Once again I am reminded of how important it is to take more careful notes when traveling abroad, especially when experiences evolve into paintings. I totally misunderstood the information I gathered at the Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Familia. I did not realize until my recent research into the history of the Torre Salvana that the interior of the Sagrada Familia and the Passion Facade on the east side were not actually designed by Gaudi. The amazing tree-like columns of the interior are a cross-mix of more modern design and the original intent taken from Gaudi's notes. One of the pieces in my upcoming show Unveiled-The Anatomy of a Painting is inspired by those enormous tree-like columns. Another painting (shown here), inspired by the Passion Facade on the west side of the Sagrada Familia should be attributed to Subirach, not Gaudi.


Images:
First Image - Charcoal drawing on canvas - Torre Salvana in Santa Coloma De Cervello, Spain
Second Image - Underpainting - Raw Umber and White
Third Image - Oil Painting of a portion of The Passion Facade of the Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Familia, Barcelona, Spain

Link to page on website featuring progress of architectural paintings

Thunderstorms

Summer is not my favorite season. For me, the highlight of summer is thunderstorms. I love lying in bed, total darkness except for the flashes of lightning, the wind causing the curtains to billow into the room and the sound of rain on the gutters and ground. The sound of the rain pounding on the metal roof at the studio is even better.

A powerful storm moved through in the early hours of the morning taking with it the electricity at the studio. I've painted in the dark before, no reason to break my routine due to lack of light. A perfect opportunity to play with my paint, using extreme colors calculating the mixes in my head and making sure the values worked. Even after the electricity came back on I continued to play. As much as I have enjoyed working on the Road Series, I have also felt restricted by working representationally and focusing on relatively realistic atmospheric conditions.

One of the benefits of painting a series is that after having solved many of the common problems presented by the series, I can't help but veer off in another direction that usually suggests a fresh approach and ultimately stronger work.

Sky as the source of color scheme

The underpaintings shown are a mix of viridian, cadmium red medium and white. Yesterday I applied the first glaze to the square painting illustrated above, a landscape in Northern Portugal. I started the session with a neutralized blue-gray to the sky. My attention was focused on mixing colors to create distant atmospheric perspective. When it came to the foreground greens I found it difficult to mix colors that didn't make my stomach turn and cause a sense of depression to deplete my energy. After several hours of struggle, I was able to mix brighter, yet still grayed, greens and an odd, but not unpleasant sense of light began to give life to the painting.



Today's session started on a second canvas (same underpainting colors) with a different approach to the sky, a bright, yet light value mix of cobalt turquoise and white. The color of the sky determines the light source and therefore affects all the other color mixes on the canvas. If the sky is gray, there are no blues being reflected off of the landforms in the shadows below; nor are there warm yellows reflecting off of the landforms in the sunlit areas since the sun is also blocked. Therefore only grayed variations of all the colors are possible if I am limiting myself to reality which, of course, I am not. Reality is only a starting point. When the sky is blue, the shadow areas will reflect a lovely blue variation of the local color and the sunlit areas will reflect white or yellows variations of local color. As the sun sets and the sky becomes more purple with oranges reflecting off of the clouds, the same colors appear in the shadows and lit areas of the landscape.

I remember the first winter after discovering alizarin crimson. It was the early 70's. Winter no longer appeared gray, white, black and brown with a blue sky overhead. Everywhere I looked I saw crimson and purple brambles, hillsides of lavenders and pinks. My eyes, having awakened to the crimsons of the leafless trees and bushes, became aware of the bright blues in shadows cast upon snow next to the sunlit yellows and oranges. Once again, painting is awakening me to new colors and nuances of color that have surrounded me all my life without my taking notice.