In Sense

After painting the homage to Klimpt, it gave me an idea to make a whole painting out of the candy/jewel effect seen in the painting. It was also another palette cleanser, where I clean off the blobs of paint from my landscape palette. I made a variety of circular and oval rings or blobs, then outlined or filled them in with a range of colours. Most of the colours are medium to high chroma (intensity) and the overall contrast (light/dark) was kept to a minimum. Contrast is an important part of composing a painting, the renaissance masters would often paint the whole background in sepia tones (dark brown/black) and then portray a single light source such as a window or candle illuminating the subject matter. The impressionists reduced these dramatic contrasts in their paintings, preferring to use a range of pastels with light and dark kept to a minimum. When I studied the Klimpt paintings, he reduced contrast even more, composing scenes almost entirely in grey tones, with flecks of gold highlight. As an artist, it is good to plan out the contrasts, where is the lightest light, where is the darkest dark, and what is the overall contrast of the painting? There is only one 'white' area in this painting, not white really but the paper showing, if you look around you will spy it.

In Sense, watercolour 9 x 12" watercolour paper, June 2023 (No. 3638b)