Blue Island Dream

If you've read Richard Schmid's masterful oil painting "bible" Alla Prima (thank you again Santa!), you know that he recommends (as many art teachers do) creating color charts with your basic palette. Here's a great posting by a very talented artist about the charts. Nice job Jana!

Ahh charts...I've done them in the past and can be time consuming, but absolutely worth the extra effort. And I do recommend them to both my oil painting & watercolor students. However, it's still the holidays so I thought I'd make the task a bit more enjoyable today.

Here I selected one key pigment, one of my favorites, Ultramarine Blue, and mixed it with the other colors on my very limited palette (Thalo Blue, Cad Yellow Lt, Indian Yellow, Perm Rose) and white while in turn creating an abstract painting.

For the abstract my goal was to create a dynamic composition (on the diagonal) while playing with a contrast of softer undefined shapes against sharper ones, as well as full range of values. My goal was 10--I think I have them! For extra color "pop" I added some line work with a complementary red orange oil pastel.

Tomorrow I think I'm going to try a warmer color and see where that takes me...

Moody Blues

This abstract oil painting was a commission for a lovely East Coast family that I met at the Boulder Fall Art Festival. It was part of my series of abstract series inspired by my trip to Taos and the Rio Grande. I can't wait to visit Sedona in a few weeks to take more inspiring photos.

Also, check out my new article: 5 Great Reasons to Take an Art Class Now on TeachStreet.

Splash Down

Sometimes, I think the most interesting abstract paintings celebrate the inherent properties of a particular color. When I work on that kind of color study abstract, I prefer to use a variety of painting knives to help keep the pigment pure.

This abstract painting is loosely based on an ocean wave front and diving sea birds, but the overall goal was to create a successful color study that explored color blue (and its orange complement) in a balanced, but high energy way.