At the
Feet of the Gods
Acrylic
on 10 x 10 inch gallery wrapped canvas
From my
own photograph
This
time around I set myselves a challenge to paint a scene from one of
my old photographs. The challenge was to paint it with an almost
monochrome palette yet keep the values consistent with very bright
sunlight. In addition I wanted to work on weaning myself off my bent
of too much detailing.
To that
end I chose a smallish gallery wrapped canvas and a reference photo
I'd taken years ago, in Nashville at a book fair. I wanted the
indistinct background figures to stay in a high key (very light
colours) while keeping the values in a wide enough range to denote
sunlight.
I really
liked the seated figure, but I changed things a bit so's he looked
like he had just looked up from his book and noticed I was snapping a
photo. I wanted him against the dark marble pedestal for the contrast
with his white T-shirt. I wanted to keep the relative values correct
for the maximum sunlit effect. You can see my very old value chart on
top of the reference photo. I used this time and again to check
values.....I've learned that I very often miss the mark on which
value is which.
You can
make your own value chart by mixing together black and white paint
and splitting the difference between total black and total white in
half.....then again in half....and so on until you have anywhere from
5 to 10 steps between the two extremes.
I
finished off the painting with, what was for me , a restrained
palette....keeping any intense colours on the main character and
keeping most everything else in the warm or cool gray range.
Next
time around I just may go wild......and head off in the other
direction.... of colour, color everywhere!
