Day 10: 30/30 Challenge-Piece # 5

30/30 Challenge-Day 10/painting # 5

I guess this is turning out to be a painting every other day! That will have to be OK.

The challenge is becoming a good way to learn more about color. I admit that using color is very difficult for me. Having heard others say that they understand and use color intuitively is irritating to me. (Sorry of this is you reading!!!!!) Somehow that declaration feels exclusionary to me; like I won't ever acquire the skill of using color naturally and I just know this can't be right. 

Lately I have been studying the work of some other artists to see how they might be using color. For the above piece I decided to work with some analogous, cool and muted colors. I focused on arranging the colors so that two somewhat complementary color relationships were highlighted. I also focused on uniting some shapes with similar values to make more of a continuous pattern. Lastly, I added the moon to sort of tie things together and to "surprise" myself. That bit of advice, to surprise yourself with something, is a great little tidbit isn't it? And I love the tree shapes. I was freaked out about painting big green shapes that were supposed to look like trees. As soon as I let go of the tree idea (i.e. a tree needs to look like a tree and be a realistic green color) than I was just fine. The shape just became representational and a place to park color and value.

Incidentally, the above piece is based on a scene that I saw out of my kitchen window the other morning. The moon was poking out through the trees and I alternatively focused on the trees and then the moon and then back again. The mountains couldn't be seen in the dark but they are certainly there. 

OK, hope everyone is having a good weekend so far. More painting tomorrow I think:)

Thanks for reading and commenting.

Libby