Moses Botkin Monthly Challenge

This month it was my pick and I decided we should experiment with a limited palette. And I meant limited. I chose the complements of purple and yellow to paint whatever subject we each wanted. We could add white and mix the two colors to make grays, but no black.

It was a fun challenge. It forced me to look at values, something I am struggling with this week! It also made me loosen my brushwork more, as there was less tendency to define everything and separate it based on color changes. While I went loose and undefined though, some of the group really worked the colors to make them as natural looking as they could and achieved some really interesting and surprising results. Be sure to check their blogs for more information on how each one approached the assignment.

Enjoy!


Study in Complements
8x10 oil on panel
Paint colors: ultramarine blue/quinacridone red, hansa yellow and white.
© 2010 Robin Cheers



Sliced Plum on a Wood Block
5x5 oil on panel
Paint colors: ultramarine blue/cadmium red, cadmium yellow and white.
© 2010 Jeanne Illenye

Dancer at the Bar

7x5 oil on hardboard
Paint colors: ultramarine blue/thio violet, cadmium yellow medium, white

© 2010 Diana Moses Botkin

PY Study
12x9 oil on panel
Paint colors: cobalt violet, cadmium lemon and white.
© 2010 Vicki Ross



Sofia
20x16 oil on canvas
Paint colors: ultramarine blue/alizarin crimson, cadmium yellow, white
© 2010 Suzanne Berry

Value Study

I don't know if this is worth sharing, but I found the exercise helpful. I think Kim English is a master of light... his paintings just glow and I've been trying to figure out how he does it. So I copied one of his painting images from a gallery website, and turned it to grayscale in Photoshop. I wanted to see how his values break down. He seems to have the full range of values from 10 - (black) to a 1 - pure white.



An important part of a successful painting is of course, having a one range dominate the scene with accents of the other. And I think that connecting those value ranges is important so that your eye doesn't jump around the painting too much.
My scene has a few less values. And midtones seem to dominate as usual.



Honestly, working from photos makes me worry that I would get too dark or too much a range of values. When I work en plein air, the values are closer generally. At least I always get them close. With so much light bouncing around you don't see very dark shadows. My trouble with painting on location (landscapes) is that I seem to end up with something looking like it was all painted with 5 values... midtones. I've always had to really push myself outdoors to get a range of values. Maybe I need to push more in the studio too!

Mood

Today I felt like experimenting a little - I needed to loosen up and try some new things. I think painting from photos and trying to be "representational" often makes me tighter and too real with my color choices. Today I had fun and loosened up. And I can't tell you how much fun I had! I should paint this way all the time! Instead of copying a scene, I created different moods and interpreted.

I chose a photo of two cowboys from a rodeo we stopped at in Bertram. It has a nice contrast of shadow and light with lots of fun highlights. I massed everything together basically and then just added a midtone here and there.
I tried different color schemes and its interesting to see how the mood changes with each.

The first one I wanted to do in 'hot' colors. All warm reds and yellows. A wonderful reference for work that looks like you're in the blazing sun is John Asaro's book "A New Romanticism" (btw - I have his book and didn't realize it was so valuable$ now!)



Next, I approached it with a cool palette and it almost has a feeling of a night scene under moonlight. One regret.... I put his hands in with a red. I got too literal. Painted what was there rather than what should have been there.



Next, I chose to paint the scene with complements. First, purple and yellow. Obviously not direct complements. The yellow turned out more towards the green side.



And red and green. I like this combination a lot for this scene/subject.



Finally - I wanted to try to paint in a higher "key". Everything I do generally has the full value range from 10 (black) to 1 (white). This time I wanted to try something very light. And this is my favorite.



All of these took a short time. They are on linen scraps and I painted them with washes and really massed everything together first, then went back in to model the forms. I can see doing this with cafe scenes very successfully.

What a great exercise. I feel renewed!