12 July 2014

Daily painting - speed v. indecision

One day the painting changed entirely - from brash to muted, from a try-out of all the transparent paints on hand, to using a few neutrals -
"Parchment" takes out some of the darker greens
Add in Payne's Grey and get rid of greens and blues
More greys, and the oranges are gone
Thin washes over the yellow
(Too thin.) A darker shade of pale was needed
That was done quickly, thanks to two tricks picked up recently. 1. Using the width of the brush, pushing it down firmly, to make the entire width at one go. This depends on having the right amount of paint on the brush before starting, which depends on the consistency of the paint and how much the brush holds, which influences how much pressure you put on the brush ... I'm still practising this ... 2. Using a folded wet cloth to swipe down the edge of the stripe to make it straight.

And I quite like the bit of variation in the stripes due to colour showing through, or paint mixing itself during the painting. More relaxed. Less maniacly controlled (and falling short of perfect). One thing leading to the next, no dithering.

Now the point of indecision is ... what colour next? There are still so many possibilities.
Possibilities for the next colour
(ochre fromIvon Hitchens? that red from John Craxton? green or brown from my JQ scraps?)
... or something gentle from the colour dictionary?
The camera made those grey stripes very blue, probably because of all the blue in Payne's Grey, which I'm using instead of black (I seem to have picked up some painters' prejudice against using black out of a tube.)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

ha! "a darker shade of pale"
I love old song lyrics restyled.
Diane