New Work: Up, Up and Away.

Up, Up, and Away
20" x 20" acrylic on canvas

It's hard to believe but I have been picking away at this painting since the beginning of June. One thing and another has taken over working on this piece. I tend to lose track of things when this happens and sometimes forget my original intent. I know that I wanted to utilize the color yellow more. I have a terribly hard time working with it, trying to get just the color that I want. Yellow can really have a lot of blue underneath it making the color appear as a yellow green instead of something warmer. I have found a good trick is to add a little quinacridone magenta. It warms up the yellow just enough and seems to neutralize that greenish cast at the same time. Very effective. 

I will say that most of the time I am grasping for colors that will do something to one another when placed next to each other. What happens most often is a difference in values-light against dark, same value against same value, that kind of thing. Sometimes I get what I call a "chroma" hit. A very chromatic color, something very intense and bright, will be highlighted against a more neutral color, sometimes a tint. And sometimes I get what I call a "direct" hit-two chromatic colors right next to each other, possible opposites on the color wheel. It makes a powerful, larger shape. Lots of times I set out to highlight a particular color, say maybe I want to use a lot of red. Red could turn into the dominant feeling. I hardly ever though stick with this plan. At some point, the painting starts to tell me what it wants. I find that most often, it's this kind of dialogue between me and the painting that ends up turning the piece into what it eventually becomes. There is no real sense anymore in trying to plan stuff out. I start with a plan but that quickly gets put aside. It's taken me a long time to get to this point, creatively speaking. 

The title is sort of based on a hike that I had this week. I was slogging up a longish hill to reach the top. Slogging is the right word too, make no mistake about it. All the triangles in the above piece remind me of mountains. I had the idea that I would have liked to sail gracefully up that hill, kind of an up, up and way feeling. No chance! Feet of lead! Hopefully my painting feels lighter.

Hope that everyone has had a good week. Thanks for reading and commenting.

Libby