red & green

kimberly (color study)
Arches CP 300gsm 14" x 10". 3 hours.

i have played around with flesh mixtures for several years. this painting was done entirely in red or green paints: quinacridone magenta and viridian for the background; cadmium scarlet and phthalo green YS for the figure; the hair is cadmium scarlet and perylene maroon; the freehand drawing (squaring the image to copy it) is in charcoal.

the technique of glazing a carmine lake pigment over a green (terre verte) ground dates from the middle ages, and is described somewhere in james elkins' "what painting is". i only began experimenting with it a few weeks ago. i have been looking for ways to model the figure without using a blue violet shadow tint, and this does the trick.

i am contemplating doing about twenty of these small scale figures in the same color scheme. the model was a natural, a dancer and free spirit, and gave me a great series of poses.

this is what i call a problem painting, something done to tackle a specific visual problem or examine a specific painting technique. these are often gift images, for example when something grabs my interest because it would be a challenge to paint it. otherwise the problem paintings are like experiments or explorations, simply watching how things go, to learn what is possible or "what works".