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Friday, June 30, 2006

Living and Painting in a Fog

The rain and fog just ain't going away this summer. I went out to Con Robinson's Point where the fog was ebbing (somewhat), set up my tripod on a rock outcrop in the low tide zone, and painted the fog.
"Con Robinson's Point in the Fog"
9x12, oil/panel, en plein air

I used a heck of a lot of white in this painting, but I managed to keep the grays full of color. How'd I do this? I use a good amount of my palette scrapings from the previous painting. Every time I finish a painting, I take all the "used" paint on my palette, scrape it into a pile and mix it thoroughly. This "soup" is inevitably gray, but it is harmonized with my limited palette the because it contains a little bit of everything I use. This soup becomes a significant portion of my next painting -- I will use it everywhere. I can push this gray to be warmer or cooler or into a different color family by adding tiny bits of pure color. I can get some really nice grays with this method. (Grays should never be blah and truly neutral; they should always belong to some color family.)

By the time I finished, all my brushes were literally dripping with water from the fog. A weird experience, seeing the water running down into my brush holder.

(PS - Due to popular demand, I am turning "on" comments for my blogs. New entries will allow comments, so be nice!)