Animals

Color Theory #3

| maggiebird

This is one of the llamas at Clove Cottages in New York State. I drew the llama here. She was painted (for a color theory class at the local community college) using a double-split color scheme, which means I used two pairs of complementary colors.  Magenta and green, and blue-violet and yellow.

This is close to the palette I normally use.  But I’m usually pretty disorganized, and choose colors randomly. I’ve never restricted myself to only a few pure tube colors. (I had no tube color for blue-violet, so I mixed up a big puddle of ultramarine blue and  alizarin crimson. The pigments did tend to separate out, but when remixed, they made a familiar blue-violet of which I am very fond.)

Sometimes restrictions upon artwork conversely allow you more freedom. With only four colors available to my paintbrush,  I first spent a lot of time playing around, figuring out how those paints would mix. Then I planned the painting—colors and temperatures of the shadows and the highlights. Only then did I start splashing on paint.

The actual painting took very little time. After so much preparation, making the picture was exhilarating. It felt like skateboarding down a steep hill; there were some bumpy spots, but mostly it was fast and furious. And I didn’t fall off once.

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Color theory #2

| maggiebird

The Henny Penny in this post  was painted using an analogous color scheme. That is, all the hues came from the same corner of the color wheel. Transparent pyrrol orange, quinacridone red, and perylene maroon (all Daniel Smith watercolors). Not exactly analogous, but pretty close.

The analogous colors are interesting to work with. When mixed, they often increase in intensity. I used the perylene maroon, a dark value, dusky pigment to try to tone things down a bit.

The trouble with the analagous palette in watercolors is that, unless you use black paint, which I don’t, the paints will often not create as dark a value as you might need. They are inherently incapable of making a dark dark. So to make the eye dark enough, I had to mix in a touch of sap green to the violet. It made a nice dark eye. Too dark, I see now. I need to add a little highlight.

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More owls

| maggiebird

Sometimes, you know, life makes me feel a little earth-bound. Painting helps take me away, if only in my sketchbook. Again, we have some more owls.

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Feathered journey

| maggiebird

The wanderings of this blog are often paths of odd connections sparked by one simple beautiful thing.

For instance, how did I decide  to write about owls in my previous post?

It started with a beautiful image by Jude Hill. I love that image, and in order to internalize it, I “interpreted” her stitched image with watercolors. Since the original image is not mine, I can’t share my interpretation with you.

But while painting that image, I remembered some feathers (I think they are from a barn owl) I found in the Sierra. So I dragged them out to make a painting of them (the fluffy part—called the after feather!—was really hard to paint. Or not paint, as the case may be). While working,  I suddenly remembered the barn owls I’d seen in the middle of Sili Valley and knew I had to tell you about it. And I  had to draw some owls.

Now my sketchbook is filled with feathers and owls, and such moonlit dreams that I have on these dark autumn nights.