Addison Grace

Perfect Game, 10.5" x 6.5", Mixed Media

Sweet Addison Grace, my 11 year old great niece, pitched a perfect game this week in the Arkansas state softball tournament.  Now state champs, they are off to Regionals in Dumas, TX.  Go Firecrackers!

Lilacs

Lilacs,  24.5" x 17", Oil on Board 

Everything is basically in place.  Now I can refine and determine the colors and values.  There are currently 3 different hues on the blossoms.  I will probably use the color from the bottom left blossom.  The top blossom is too violet and the other are too magenta.  I also need to take out the area in the sky to the left.  It looks dirty rather than like foliage.  I still haven't decided if I will stay with the yellow green leaves.  I may simply use a silver tone.  

Lilacs

Lilacs, 24.5" x 17", Oil on Board 

Today I began to see how some of the leaves will be in the foreground and act as a compositional tool to lead the viewer toward the blossoms.  I also realize that I prefer a really deep, dark ground against the plants, creating an unknown and ambiguous space, a sort of push and pull between what is leaf and what is ground. Also, not so sure about the diagonal created by the bush and the ground against the sky.

Lilacs

Lilacs, 24.5" x 17", Oil on Board 

Lilacs

Lilacs,  24.5" x 17", Oil on Board

I'm still struggling with determining the proper greens to use.  The lilac leaves are a cool blue green. But when the sun shines through them they take on a yellow tint.  Two problems arise, 1) mixing a green that is yellow without being murky and 2) seeing if that color rings true for a lilac in the painting.  

Lilacs

Lilacs, 24.5" x 17", Oil on Board

I lightened the sky today.  Still not certain if that will be the end of it.  Other than continuing refining the leaves, I also tried a new color base for the lilacs.  It will be hard to know until more area is covered if this color will pop enough.  

Lilacs

Lilacs, 24.5" x 17", Oil on Board

The sky is much too gray and dark.  I'm after a spring morning mist.  What once appeared violet now looks murky and gray.  I saw an excellent online video from the World Science Festival and sponsored by of the Alan Alta Flame Project.  All About Color  features 3 neuroscientists, one of whom is also a painter, explaining how the eye and brain process color.  One of the lectures addresses how color is relevant to its surroundings.  This is what happened to the once beautiful misty violet that became a murky gray once the green leaves pronounced themselves.

Lilacs

Lilacs, Oil on Board

All the white is covered and the violet seems too dark now.  I keep thinking of Lincoln and Whitman.

When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d,

And the great star early droop’d in the western sky in the night,

I mourn’d, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.

Ever-returning spring, trinity sure to me you bring,

Lilac blooming perennial and drooping star in the west,

And thought of him I love.

Lilacs

Lilacs, Oil on Board

The lilacs have yet to make their appearance here.  They are in full bloom in the garden.  

Geraniums Redux

Geraniums, 2014, 16 3/4" x 24 1/2", Oil on Board

Geraniums, 2013, 16 3/4" x 24 1/2", Oil on Board

This is the second painting I have recently revamped.  This time I redid the composition, completely eliminating the marsh and am not sure it is better. I keep imagining just cutting the entire thing into separate paintings.  You may see this again.