Saturday, December 01, 2012

Heat Wave - progress



I've appreciated the warmth of this painting during the last week when its turned colder and we've had wild wind and the first snow of the year. The colours in this piece surprise me in that they work, or I think they do. But its all about values isn't it, not colour.  If form can be recognized, the colour is irrelevant and the eye fills in the memory. There may be a few more water pieces in a similar palette before I'm through with this yet.

Of course the season and the powers of work and weather all have worked wonders at keeping me away from this painting most of this week, but I've pulled a few minutes here and a couple of hours there and its coming along and I'm happy with it so far.

I'm calling the background or top half done, now to let it sit for a day or two and then continue on with developing the foreground.  That subtle sheen of wet sand along with colour and value changes that are minimal are important to capture to make the piece cohesive.  The shifting sand in the immediate foreground has the basic values in place and will be refined more too.