In a Fog...Painting & Results

I recently posted about some of my successes. Now, I'm going to post about a less successful painting...

I love bright, bold colors. Dramatic contrasts. Paintings like my ballerinas exemplify that. However, I know that to evolve, I need to learn softness and subtle changes. After visiting the Houston's Monet & the Seine exhibit, I decided it was time to give it a chance. Monet painted a lot of soft winter scenes, where the main color is white.

Every color is softened with white.

I decided to practice using a photograph I took on a trip to Carmel. It was a cold day, and there was a mist in the air. The water appeared more gray than blue. But what I loved about that day is how the yellow flowers in the field glowed through the otherwise grim day.

The first issue I had was the color scheme.

This photograph didn't naturally lend itself to one of the color schemes. My teacher suggested yellow and purple. I understood her reasoning. The yellow would contrast and glow, and purple for mountains and mist is pretty common. However, I just couldn't see it and feel it. Thus, I did a couple of studies.

One is in purple and yellow. The other red, blue, yellow. The red, blue, yellow spoke to me. (I may still go back one day and try with softer purples, but we'll see.)

The next issue I had was making that soft, misty feeling of the fog. I needed to keep my colors muted with lots of white, the greens muted with blue, and keep all the edges soft. One of the main problems I keep having is mixing subtle changes in color, whether it is for these soft edges or for skin color. In that way, I was a little more successful with this painting.

I achieved softness, but I lost a little depth. I had trouble defining the foreground without losing the softness. Also, I think the yellow competes for attention with the red roofs. If my goal hadn't been to make those flowers glow, I think the painting would have been more cohesive.

Anyway, another thing I learned from the Monet exhibit was that even he felt the need to keep painting the same scene again and again. He painted studies and pieces of things before he got it the way he wanted. And he often just painted the same thing in different ways and with slightly different colors schemes. One sign at the exhibit said that Monet went out one day to a bend in the river with something like 10 canvas. He painted the same scene from the first scintilla of daylight until the final shadow of the evening fell. 

I guess if I make this painting 10 times, it will improve...