The Painting of "Red Rocks 5"
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The Painting of "Red Rocks 5"
Another abstract(ish) landscape painting inspired by the landscape of Sedona, AZ. While this is inspired by a place, it doesn’t copy or match a certain place. I didn’t paint it from an image, but rather an image in my mind from Sedona. When painting landscapes, there really is no need to copy what is there, when you can communicate a feeling for the place.
Again I have used local color for the painting. This time though, I changed my approach. The idea for this painting was to play up the light against dark contrast of the landscape. I wanted to have a sky with gradation from dark at the top to light at the bottom. For the land shapes, I wanted just the opposite - gradation from light at the top to dark at the bottom, thus the lightest values of the land shape would be painted against the darkest value of the sky shape. The value of the land shape gets darker as the sky shape gets lighter.
This painting is painted on a half sheet (11x30) of Fabriano Artistico 300lb Watercolor Paper covered with gesso.
Just a note about the colors. I used, as you can see from my list, lots of colors. The goal was to have an orange and blue complementary color combination. Every color doesn’t have to be blue or orange, but when the painting is complete, it has to LOOK and FEEL like a blue and orange painting.
Here are the colors I used - all are GOLDEN Heavy Body Acrylic Paints:
Benzimidazolone Yellow Light
Pyrrole Orange
Titan Buff
Burnt Sienna
Cadmium Red Medium Hue
Quinacridone Magenta
Cerulean Blue Deep
Cobalt Blue Hue
Ultramarine Blue
Titanium White
The first thing I have to do when I begin any abstract landscape painting is draw in a horizon line. If I don’t draw it in first, the horizon always seems to be tilted. On the palette I have only Cobalt Blue Hue and Titanium White. I paint full strength Cobalt Blue Hue at the top of the sheet, then gradually add white as I move down the sheet, trying to get an even gradation of value. I let that dry overnight.
On the palette I mix a variety of orange colors and values as well as a little red-orange and red color, making both light and dark values of each.
I then start putting in shapes. This painting is mainly about making and building shapes. Shapes of the land forms and shapes of the sky. I begin my shape making with the land forms painted over the Cobalt Blue of the sky. I start with light values that will pop against the dark value of the sky. I pull randomly from the light values on the palette. I then put in darker values as I move toward the horizon line, again randomly choosing the pre-mixed color from the palette.
I mostly complete the land shape on the right and move to the shapes at the left using the same approach. I complete the ground plane, make a few other adjustments, and I’m done. All in at about 13 minutes.
If you’re interested in learning about making abstract landscape paintings, please sign up for one of the “Abstracting the Landscape” Mini-Workshops shown below, or on my website.
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As always, thanks for your support!
David
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