Plastic/Psychological continued

Color Swatch

Desaturated

Plastic: I’ve been studying the 2 working copies of my proposed painting and have come up with a color plan for the 1st layer on the painting.  I have yet to make a same-size drawing and tracing but that will happen soon.  In the meantime, I’m going to do a few more small paintings using the middle and bottom swatch for my opening moves.  When I did the blue swatch I was planning the sky area.  When I did the bottom swatch, I was thinking of my foreground.  Regarding the value scale, I’m starting in the middle, will reserve whites (another decision; use frisket or paint around?)

The blue swatch is a combination of Cerulean Blue and Aureolin Yellow.  The bottom swatch is Cerulean Blue, Aureolin Yellow and Alizarin Crimson, which I will use to establish tones.  Mixed together I think/feel that it makes a lovely gray.  I desaturated the photo of color swatch in my photo editing program so I could see how much white paper to ‘save’ and how dark I can go to do the finishing touches.  I’m satisfied that it will make strong darks for this painting as well as pale yet colorful light.

Psychological: One of the reasons my drawing table hasn’t been available is that it’s been my eBay table for the past 6 weeks & covered with chotchkes I want to sell.  It’s also been too cold in there to work comfortably at art.  The good news is that I’m almost done selling the eBay stuff; the last item goes out the door in a few days.  I’m not sure how cold it will be but I feel certain that I’ll get to the drawing by this weekend, even if I have to use a space heater to keep warm.

The rest of today will be spent going out and doing some shopping, then some cleaning and making dinner for a good friend.  And celebrating no storm today and plenty of sunshine.

More soon.