Monday, February 8, 2016

River Rink (Maura and Pat)


River Rink (Maura and Pat)
oil, 5 x 7"
NFS


This painting began as an iPhone snapshot of Husband and Daughter enjoying a happy night of ice skating under the lights of the Ben Franklin Bridge. 

To begin this painting I cropped my the photo to the same proportion as my canvas, in this case 5 x 7”.   I use a grid feature to make sure my composition more or less comports with the Rule of Thirds.

I began with an under painting of raw sienna to give a nice glow to the ice.  I filled in some of the background figures with a darker value of raw sienna and wiped out along the ice.  I added the darks, burnt umber, French ultramarine and black, to the night sky and the foreground figures.  As I stood back, I noticed the pretty glow the under painting of raw sienna gives the skater figures on the right.  They almost have the feel of a watercolor.  Should I worry them with detail? No!  Do they convey all of the information the viewer needs as they are?  Yes!  

It sometimes takes a heck of a lot of self-restraint not to go in for the kill and worry every last element with detail.  


Thanks for looking!


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