Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Marginal Way Color

It has been far too long since I posted. I have been painting as much as I can - but with lots of distractions.

I have a few paintings that I can post over the next week or so. Here is the first:

Marginal Way Color 1
8x8 Oil on Canvas


This is my first ocean/coast painting and it was a lot of fun to do. While I was painting it, I was focused on the color, shape and light rather than "here is a painting of rocks and water". That is the way you are supposed to paint :) but sometimes I find it hard to not focus on the object. If you do that, you end up painting what you think it should look like, rather than what it actually looks like. So if you're painting an apple, you know it is red and round, but if you focus on the shapes, colors and value of what is actually in front of you, your mind doesn't get in the way of what you are really seeing. It's taken me at least 2 years to figure that one out, even though it is in every painting book in the world.

This painting was inspired by a little oil painting by Judith Schuppien that I bought a couple of years ago. It is of a rock in the water, with wonderful, simple brush strokes. She painted it on an orange ground and used that orange for reflections and light. You can see that same use of the orange ground in her "Gloucester Harbor Study" in the link above. I did this painting on an orange ground, but didn't use it the way she did (because I couldn't figure it out) but I like the way the color set the mood for the whole painting.

5 comments:

  1. It was worth the wait! I love this one, the colors are wonderful and I can feel the waves on the rocks. I'm going to your link to Judith now.
    It's great to see your work again.

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  2. Thank you Shirley. It feels good to be back.

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  3. Really very nice, Meg. I, too, can see & feel the water splashing over the rocks. I love your blog, too, because you're learning so much and teaching us so much, too. Great work. You are amazing!!

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  4. Thanks Nancy! You are always so kind :)

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  5. Meg I like this painting also, I love the colors. To me it looks so real sitting there in front of me.

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