Just after finishing the Lab Book #14 miniseries I did this painting which was inspired by an old style of painting done in France just after the revolution and slightly before impressionism began. This style depicted mostly rural scenes with laborers working on the farm or with livestock. The style was kind of a slap in the face of the traditional 'academic' style that dominated at the time (academic painters focused on mythical greek or religous themes, and considered the painting of lower class common-folk to be unacceptable). In this painting I depicted a cartoon image of a farmer holding a pitchfork in the middle of a plot of land. A red golem comes out of the ground at his feet representing the blood and sweat that it takes to raise crops from the ground.I really went for a bright colour scheme with this one, aiming for rich rusty-reds and deep candy-yellows, intermixed with tangerine oranges (hence the name of the painting). To get these colours I used some high intensity colour glazing...this is done by laying down a wash of an unmixed colour (right from the tube, not diluted too much to keep it bright), letting it dry, and then overlaying with a thin second wash of neutral gray or green to keep it 'earthy looking'. The second wash can drastically change the appearance of the first wash. For example, the deep purple shadows cast by the character were initially a hot bright-pink, onto which I layered a cool blue to give the final shadow, which is electric and full of life. The main character began as a crimson red, to which I overlayed a thin green (the same combination used extensively throughout the Lab Book 14 mini series). Most of the yellows began as pure aurelian yellow, on which I put greens or browns to make the yellow cool, or warm, respectively.
15x11" cold press 2009
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