 |
| Autumn into Mauve, oil on canvas, 48 x 48 inches Private collection |
First of all my sincere thanks to the kind couple that purchased this artwork for their home.
Some years ago, a friend of mine attended a Neil Welliver art class and passed on a nice piece of advice. Neil said something to the point of 'insisting' on a color. I had that in mind when I was working on this piece.
The initial idea was all about a red forest but early into the composition the mauves started to win out. The blue-purple hues were making the painting begin to sing, so I went with it. Once I started adding the forward trees it became apparent that the mauve tones were working really well. That's the point were I decided to cut back on the amount of foliage so that more of the background would show through.
The autumn yellows and golds played off that wall of mauve nicely but something was still lacking. Reds! They went in at almost full strength and some a bit of orange added in.
Still, the painting was demanding more. Adding the dark area at the bottom left of the background created more depth along with left-to-right interest, a nice move and finally, those few green bits of foliage added a more natural element to this bit of forest.
The colors here are very direct, each insistent on creating a better artwork. Thanks Neil!
No comments:
Post a Comment