An Update a Day, Days Nine and Ten

Hopefully, this post will be the last one where I cover two days in one. My break isn't necessarily ideal, but I'm making the most of it. Here's an acrylic painting of an alpaca and a still life done in oil. I have to say that I've learned a great deal from these two pieces about color and temperature; something just clicked with each exercise.

The alpaca was the first piece where I really considered temperature and learned of its importance. Before this piece, I was trying to wrap my head around warms and cools and how temperature affected color and form. I'm not sure if the concept of temperature was executed well in this piece, but I can say I learned much about temperature in executing the painting. A big thank you to Matt Howley for pushing the concept of temperature onto my painting. You guys can check out his blog at: http://mattyhowley.blogspot.com/

The pears were absolutely fun to paint. I've handled oils for a while now (unfortunately I still use student grade oils) but the approach for this painting was refreshing. I put down a "washy" cadmium red light underpainting of the still life, and then, I painted right over the underpainting while it was still wet. I considered the influence of the underpainting in my mixes, and when it was necessary, I simply overpowered the influence with sheer volume. The real fun was in painting the white cloth. I really struggled to see and exaggerate the colors on the cloth. Again, I probably walked away with more than I could put on the canvas. A very big indirect thank you to Andrew Theophilopoulos, a constant inspiration, friend, and teacher, for bringing to my attention the importance of saturation and color. You guys can check out his website at: http://cargocollective.com/Theonides

P.S. I'll be posting more recent sketches and current projects starting next post!