The Painting of "Cajun Moon"

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Te Painting of “Cajun Moon”

I taught a great workshop last week at a great, new to me venue in South Carolina. One of the demo paintings I did inspired me to use the same colors in a larger painting. The composition of the demo painting could have been better, so I am correcting it a bit in this larger, 36x36” gallery wrapped canvas.

Here are the colors I am using (all are Golden Heavy Body Acrylic Paint):

  • Benzimidazolone Yellow Light

  • Pyrrole Orange

  • Cadmium Red Medium Hue

  • Minty G (a custom color mixture of mine)

  • Teal

  • Jenkins Green

  • Titan Green Pale

  • Cobalt Turquoise

  • Anthraquinone Blue (mixed with Mars Black) I will refer to this as Indigo Blue

  • Cerulean Blue Deep

  • Cobalt Blue Hue

  • Titanium White

I am using Analogous Color Combination of blue, blue-green, green and yellow-green. The blue is the dominant color, the blue-green is non-dominant and the green and yellow-green act as my accent colors.

I begin by mixing the Pyrrole Orange into all the blues and mixing Cadmium Red Medium Hue into all the greens to neutralize the colors (reduce their intensity). I mix Benz Yellow Light into the muted Titan Green Pale and into Jenkins Green to make my yellow-greens. I then add a little Titanium White to all the mixtures to lighten the value as needed.

I start by laying out my large dark and dark middle value shapes with a Marabu Art Crayon. I then make some initial loose shapes with the Indigo Blue mixed with a small amount of Titanium White. Once I have located these large shapes i can introduce the base yellow-green color for my accents (centers of interest).

Once the darks and lights are in, I’m ready to add my middle values to the remainder of the canvas. I work the edges of the large shapes and try to integrate the accent colors into the blue and blue-green middle values. I randomly pick the blues and blue-greens off the palette and intermix them freely on the surface, being sure to leave some beautiful brushstrokes as I go. I look at the shapes and values as I paint, adjusting constantly as the painting progresses. Once I’m satisfied with the result, I stop painting. The last thing I want to do is noodle the painting to death. A fresh, lively painting is always better than an overworked painting. The paint is too wet for a signature, so that gets added later.

If you'd like to learn about abstract painting and making your own authentic work, then please join me for a painting workshop: (You can view a list of remaining 2020 workshops HERE)

As always, thanks for your support!

David

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