Embroidered Collage

  White!  Aaargh.  I was able to mix the bronze-browns in the background just fine with a bit of green and a bit of orange and Jim agreed that they were not mud.  But I had a great deal of difficulty getting the values and shades of the many whites right.

This was my first set of colors that I laid down, fully covering the canvas, trying to get the shadings of warmth and cool correct.  He saw the table cloth in the light as much warmer and lighter than I had, a great many more colors in the scarf, and greater value differences between the light and shadow areas of the "white" stuff.

I became extremely frustrated at this point and metaphorically threw my hands up in the air and went for bright colors that had nothing to do with the white I actually saw, because that was the impression I acquired from our conversation.  The picture shows the result of that and also what happened after Jim dabbed a bit of paint on as well, hence the whitish areas. 

He thought this approach was closer to what we were aiming for in color field studies, except for two key points.  I painted the cup in two shades of blue, but he saw the light side of the mug as definitely warm, not just a warmer cool.  And he pointed out that by painting the colors in this fashion that I threw all the values out of whack, which was something I definitely saw as well.

Jim went back to the principle of painting the easiest color first, starting with the top portion of the scarf, and moving on, but this time I heard what he said differently.  The next easiest color isn't painted in near isolation, replicating what I see as best as I can, which is what I'd been doing.  Instead I am to paint the next easiest color RELATIONSHIP.  Is a nearby color warmer or cooler, lighter or darker, a bit more of this or that?  I don't have to work my way from the center out, I can bounce around across the picture, too, as long as I'm always doing comparisons.  Only the first color is painted by translating light into pigment.  I did a little fiddling with mixes after this revelation but was mostly burned out because my brain hurt.  I'll try again next week.

Another thing I noticed is that Jim takes much less paint into a mix and then onto a canvas than I do, yet somehow gets full coverage.  He adds much tinier dips of the pure pigment to the mix and creates subtler gradations.  I might have to try this.  It also might be easier on a smoother surface than the watercolor paper.

I think that as I move forward beyond this class I will try doing some similar work with colored pencils, where I can see the color and overlay instead of having to mix ahead of time.  It might help me be able to work with I see more easily.  Then, if I want, I can try in paint again.