Just before the sun went completely away for the day I sat down in front of the condo and made a quick painting of the auto shop at dusk. I cut it pretty close because it was dark shortly after completing the painting. Since they painted the auto shop grey I figured out that it is a very slight violet grey but nearly completely desaturated. The main event was the sky which transitioned from a dull cyan, to a greyish green, to a faint salmon-coloured horizon. To get the rich brick shadow colour of the building in the background, I mixed red ochre (PR101) with burnt umber (also PR101). The pigment code PR means pigment red, and the number refers to the particular pigment. PR101 actually refers to dozens of distinct paint pigments ranging from brick red, dark violet, to dark chocolatey brown. You can read more about it by clicking the earth tab on this page on handprint.com. The burnt umber I used here is called transparent burnt umber from Schmincke company, the pigment is commonly used as a wood stain to give things a dark oak or walnut appearance. As a paint, it looks like a cup of espresso but you wouldn't want to drink it! By the way, the tall trees that used to sweep the background are gone now, they had been over-run with choke vines and finally had to be cut down. If you want to see what I am talking about, click here, for a painting I made back in April.
Auto Shop at Dusk, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, September 2023 (No. 3556)
No comments:
Post a Comment