The Color of Light: An Artist's Blog

The other day I headed out to the studio and painted like a kid, which for me means painting with abandon and without expectations. I decided to take the composition I had used for that exercise and turn it into a final painting. 

It's from a photo I took the other night of my front yard. Sitting out on my front porch as the sun was going down, with my husband, and the deer and bunnies and hummingbirds, the title of this piece, Where the heart is, came as naturally as breathing. 

I worked on dark blue Pastelmat. This is a wonderful archival French paper that gives paintings a dreamy and translucent effect with beautiful soft edges. I hope you enjoy it.

I like to keep a daily painting practice but yesterday I just wasn't feeling it. When this happens I often throw logic out the window and "paint like a kid". To me this means I let go of any expectations for a piece and just have fun.

I don't expect these pieces to be shown to the public and they often aren't. But I don't consider them failures. They can teach me a lot! For example, in this piece I did last night, I threw some colors into the sky that I normally wouldn't consider sky colors, such as that bright violet. But I like the effect and may use it in another piece! 

Painting like a kid is a great way to keep a daily painting practice. Let go, play, and learn.

I don't typically like painting figures. It's fairly simple to adjust a landscape and still have it look believable,  but if something is off in your figure drawing everyone can see that it "isn't right" even if they don't know why. So time must be spent drawing (and I'm an impatient painter).

But my muse was awoken by this beautiful sunlit scene so I decided to go for it. As many of us artists are, I'm enchanted by color. Making the effort of getting a drawing correct first so I can then paint the glorious color isn't always the most enjoyable part of the painting process for me. 

However, once my drawing was in and I was able to let loose all the beautiful colors of this scene onto the paper the process became magical. I finished this painting in one sitting (with a few breaks) yesterday and getting that drawing right was worth the effort.

Henri Matisse once said "Cutting directly into color reminds me of a sculptor’s carving into stone". 

How true this rings for me! There's nothing quite as enjoyable as using bright, juicy color with abandon in a painting. And it can be a wonderful way to learn about color. Painting something simple such as round, colorful fruit is a great way to get to use vibrant color and practice painting light on an object. 

I love doing small studies of fruit. This was a relatively short studio session; I spent about an hour painting this small scene and loved cutting in those beautiful peaches.

Green is notorious among artists for being difficult to paint. It can so easily take on a garish quality and turn a landscape we'd hoped to look gentle and nuanced into a cartoon.

However, green is one of my favorite colors and I always gravitate toward painting it. Perhaps it's because I I'm fortunate to live in the midst of so much green - I'm surrounded by trees. I captured this photo a few days ago walking up the gravel road to my house when the light was hitting that gorgeous oak tree just right.

Using neutral colors, varying temperatures, and just a few bright areas of chromatic color can really make a green dominant painting sing. I chose to paint this on a dark background to really help those bright greens pop.

I love working on Sennelier La Carte card. It's a beautiful French pastel paper that has a fabulous tooth. I've heard it described as a specialized race car - something that deserves special care but if treated properly is spectacular. I agree! You cannot get this paper wet so no delicious under paintings are allowed. But it's great for direct mark making.

Here are a few in progress photos from my studio session last night, painted on La Carte.