Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Oil landscape sketch


Its been a cold winter, hey I thought this was California! What's up with that? I'm hoping it warms up soon so I can go out plein air painting. This is an oil sketch, about 8" x 10". This is a basic composition of 3 horizontal lines: foreground, middle ground, background. A focal point that has the most contrast and form, with a counter point: that little church. The sky is probably too saturated, but it was really cyan that day. I like how all the color variation occupies a thin strip across the center while the top is essentially monochromatic blue and the bottom is almost monochromatic neutrals. Imagine all of that thought in such a simple little composition.