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Monday, April 21, 2014

A Touch of Green

Seventy two colors with Viridian as the base.

Yes, I will complete my color charting project! Today, Viridian. Tomorrow Cadmium Red Medium. Know your palette. Don't try to mix a color that doesn't exist.  As the light changes, so the colors change. Advice from Schmid who stressed charting your palette. That last one dictated really working fast when out in plein air where the light changes every ten minutes or faster pending the time of day.

What continues to surprise me, as I work, is the varying degrees of saturation of the tube colors and how much, or how little, white is needed to match a value. On one of many breaks, (to keep myself sane), I took a walk into the woods. A touch of green, Viridian or otherwise, was hardly noticeable.  But look at the movement in those leafless limbs, an old sculptor's delight



Easter Woodscape.




Easter Woodscape, A Touch of Green.  You have to look hard.

 
Then the wild daffs!  Viiridian plus Yellow Ochre plus white, then Viridian with Ultramarine plus white.
There are no daffodils pictured. I picked them all to take home, evidence I had braved the wilds.

 
From the woods to our table., a lovey Spring display on Easter Sunday.

 My woods is a far cry from Seattle city life.

I'm the one in the new Stetson rain hat--just a reflection in a shop window. I was the only one who brought a camera.
 
 

4 comments:

  1. LOVE the reflection photo, really made me smile and look again! Your trees are really bare, how long before they bud?

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  2. They are budding now. The Astilbe are up and the Yarrow have new leaves. I think I see Bears' Britches peeking through too. But a major loss maybe the English ivy? The hardiest of vines really look dead. The Holly have suffered too from too many starving deer. It's really been a hard winter. Yet, today it was 70 F and I took my bike out. Tomorrow, I will pump up the tires and find my helmet. I'll be ready for the next wave of decent temperatures. Meanwhile, the charts and Rain, the painting, which is progressing very nicely as I discover all these lovely blues, greens and yellow greens.

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  3. What a joy to walk in the woods and pick wild daffs! I admire your determination with the colour charts - gold star achievement!

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    1. It's hard to get started doing the charts, but once started, the colors that derive from intermixing and getting the value steps even fascinates me. I have also not done them in the order they would be laid out on the palette. I did them as they appealed to me, which made it more of an expressionistic exercise, ie. which of these twelve colors would I absolutely have to have on my palette. Yellow Ochre was first, followed byTera Rosa, Cobalt Blue, Cadmium Yellow Pale Hue, Cadmium Yellow Medium and now Viridian. The order I chose is interesting. The runs of YO and TR and Viridian have been most enlightening. Today Cadmium Red Medium. Wednesday Cobalt Violet, which produced the most gorgeous blues mixed with Viridian. Now I want to see what comes up when CV dominates. A helpful aid has been my painting Summer Rain. As I come across an appropriate mix, on it goes. So the painting is progressing with the doing of the charts!

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