"Walk Into Spring" © 2007 Karen Mathison Schmidt
16 x 20 • acrylic on 3/4" cradled gessobord • sides painted dark brown
The cradled back allows for hanging flush against the wall
Gloss varnish for protection and ease of cleaning • sold unframed
To start at the beginning, scroll down to the third entry below this one and work your way up. The previous three entries are taken from my art journal during the making of this painting. Thought you might enjoy seeing the process - maybe you artists can identify with my frustrations and/or triumphs - please let me hear your comments!
I took the reference photos for this several weeks ago on a late afternoon walk, just as the pear trees were coming into bloom. A couple of times during the painting of it, I walked over to the place to study the shadows and street color in real life.
After living with the signed painting for a day or so, I decided the color in the shadows needed a little more dimension to further distinguish the foreground from the sunny distance. Ooo, there’s something about that phrase I really like, “The Sunny Distance.” Not a bad name for a band, maybe. Anyway, I added a glaze of reddish magenta to the grassy areas in the foreground, making the bluish areas more purplish, complementary to the yellow areas in the distance. The sunny distance. The result is that said sunny areas look ... well ... sunnier! The painting looks a lot more balanced to me now -- thanks to my studies in The Yin/Yang of Painting (Zhang and Woolley, 2000)
I used mostly brushwork on the distance, and brushes and painting knives on the foreground parts. I finished the painting with a glossy clear acrylic varnish for protection and easy cleaning. Here's a detail:
2 comments:
This painting is perfect! I enjoyed seeing you walk through the steps in your blog.
Kerri, thank you for your wonderful compliment -- I'm glad you liked the posts!
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