Ballerina Two

Oh this was such fun to paint - such glorious color and light! The painting is 14 x 18 oil on canvas. The bottom photo is the start and the top photo is the finish. A good painting day today and I am happy!

A Vagary of Happenstance - finished

A few final tweaks and highlights and I will call this done. The color in this piece is somewhat unusual and was foremost in my mind once I captured the gesture of horse and rider in my initial oil sketch and then connected them to their spot in the landscape. I wanted the painting to be mostly high key and developed a palette of soft warm whites surrounding the cool, crisper whites of the horse. The orange and lavenders in the landscape and the lowering blue of the sky suggested themselves as I moved forward. Thank you to Susan Roux http://susanroux.blogspot.com/ for her comment in the previous post concerning color - I do love color and am constantly fascinated how color, value, form all play their role in translating the artistist vision in the mind to the final observable rendition. I think oil paint is a purely magical medium that allows me to place on canvas a glimpse into otherwise unobservable realities. Art and creativity is such a joy!