May 5, 2016

Mixing Colors, Ceiling Fan

Hard to believe, I'm yet again in "return to the studio" mode.  I've been out for knee surgery (3rd in a year! who would have thought when you only have 2 knees....).  But I'm back, very eager to get back into painting.

I spent yesterday mixing paint, just to get back into the feel and into the colors.  I put out ultramarine blue, cadmium red medium, cadmium yellow medium, titanium white and chromatic black on the palette and got out my knife and went to work.

One object that held my attention a lot in this past year of injury, surgery, rehab, surgery, rehab, injury, surgery, rehab was the ceiling fan over my bed.  I was on my back a lot, looking at that fan.  White ceiling, white fan.  The room has a ceiling that is pretty low, so the fan feels like it's looming, close, and I wanted to convey that feeling when I painted it.  I had a photo and my feelings to go on.  Having that mixed palette gave me something to work with.  Since I was mixing with a palette knife, I used it to lay down most of the paint, and then added brush strokes as the fan took shape.