Natural Beauty: The Los Angeles Paintings
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Thursday, September 10, 2009
Today was a great painting day in West Hollywood. After a couple of days of cooler temperatures, the heat was back today. I love the heat, but I have made a mental note to choose a shadier location for the next painting.
The painting is filling in with color, and almost all of the original white space is gone. One of the joys of my job is discovering the intense color in the every-day world around us, and this location is no exception. In order to bring color harmony to this painting, I mixed a large amount of a grey color with a purple cast. I then mixed almost all of my others colors with the grey, especially the background colors in the hillside. Some of the foreground colors are mixed full-strength, without grey, to bring those colors forward to create a sense of atmospheric perspective.
I am excited about this painting, and glad that it is coming to fruition. I had been looking at this scene nearly everyday; when I walk home from the gym, I wait here for the “walk” sign to cross the street, and day after day, I could see this painting. It became an obvious choice for my first plein-air painting in LA.