Red, White, and Blue, USA

 This painting is called Red, White, and Blue becuase I painted it in Washington DC the capital of USA, and also because the scene itself had this profound red white and blue colour scheme. The port-o-let and the sky were blue, the white roof of the device was white, and the letters on the sign on the front of it, as well as the bricks from the houses in the background were red. Seemed fitting. I suppose I have had a history of painting port-o-lets, outhouses, and garbage cans. Ususally when I location I do try and find definitive scenes that give the viewer a sense of where they are, and in some ways, maybe that works with this one too?

Painting shadows in a field of grass is somewhat tricky, I have tried several techniques and it usually ends up looking overworked and too detailed... keep in mind that a patch of grass which is usually at the foreground of the painting, is something that the viewer is unlikely to really notice...in fact you dont really want them to notice it becuase you want them to focus on the center of attention (the port-o-let in this case, oh what a crappy subject matter!?). So in this painting I tried to make the shadow pretty diffuse and undefined... to do that I put down the light yellow-green-brown layer for the entire lawn, going all the way from the bottom edge of the paper stopping just under the middle ground elements. When it was partly dry (on that day it was humid so it took a few minutes...on a dry day it could take only a few seconds) then I put in the dark blue-green shadow colour. To mix the shadow colour I used the same light green mix I used for the lawn, and just added a bit of ultramarine (a warm transparent blue) and cereulean blue (a thick sky-blue). When the shadow was nearly dry, then I put on some 'scratchy' details to suggest grass blades... in places these details just bled around, in others they are more defined.

5x7" cold press, 2011