All you Can Eat, Dominican Republic

One of the great features of the resort down in the Dominican Repuplic was the all you can eat buffet. In this painting I show the view from our balcony, and behind the trees was the central eating area where the buffet was. Yes...fish, chicken, beef, veggies, potatoes sweet and mashed, and a dessert table...oh yeah and the palm trees and the garden was nice too. The main focus of the work is the different types of palm trees and the striking green grass with stark blue shadows. The trees in the middle were really flat, the leaves spreading out like a fan. I threw in a few coconuts too, the resort had a guy climbing up the tree an hacking them down, and then of course selling them to the tourists.

One point that is worth repeating over and over again is that outdoor shadows are filled with blue light from the sky. I have discussed this on other blogs before, and here again is a great example, intensified by the brilliant Caribbean sky. The shadows of the trees are a deep blue-green. In order to create this effect, it was important to minimize the amount of yellow in the shadow. To do this, I first painted the yellow-green lawn, and then put the blue paint in right away, before the yellow dried. In doing so, the shadow gets that deep-blue, and also the edges of the shadow get a chance to bleed a little, making them a little fuzzy on the edges (like a real shadow). What all that dried I put a second coat of a warmer green on top, to make the lawn look natural and not to shockingly bright. Finally, I put on a few dark blue/red highlights near the base of the tree where the shadow is darkest. Notice too, that the side of the tree, and the coconuts are also filled with purple-blue colours, really making the shadows sing.

5x7" cold press paper, 2009