Friday, August 15, 2014

Getting More Natural

It occurred to me in the middle of making my latest painting that the palette of colors I've been using this year had shifted the colors in my paintings to be very bright and saturated, especially the greens.  While generally speaking there is nothing wrong with bright, saturated colors I don't really think that's my style, at least it hadn't been until this year. I think maybe I really prefer a more natural look so I decided to return to a more limited palette that is just three primaries plus two earth colors and white, this is the result;

art painting landscape road rural acrylic tree

"The Road"

6" X 8", Acrylic on panel
Original - $60


Colors in nature tend to be less saturated, except for flowers of course.  I think the colors and tones in this painting are more accurate than most of my latest paintings have been.  I also think the less saturated colors result in a calmer feeling which I think suits the subject well. What do you think?



Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Back to the Land

This week I'm back to painting the landscape.

art painting landscape acrylic ditch trail outdoors

"The Path by the Ditch"

12" X 9", Acrylic on panel
Original - SOLD


This painting is based on a photo I took during my sketching trip at the Middle Provo River near Heber City, Utah that I blogged about a couple weeks ago.  I had to walk this path to get to another part of the river where I made the sketch of the cottonwood trees.  I was struck by the idea of having two clear lead-ins into the painting, one land and one water.