Orange You Glad I Caught You Up? 2013-W20

Last week's blog talked about beavers and capybaras.  This week I could mention goats or sheep, (whichever eats more grass) because a wee flock of them would come in handy today.  During my absence the lawn has overgrown the maximum height for my push mower to fell.  But I will deal with that later.

Meanwhile, I have been industrious:  sorted out the remainder of my palette reworking as mentioned in blogs 2012-W42, -W43 & 2013-W01.  Glad to have that behind me!  Managed to finish reading Art & Fear, so I can cross that off my list of 2013 Art Resolutions.  With all that done, what next?  So this week I am pausing to ponder and plan for Summer...

I have a current canine series to finish, think I'll do the last(?) of those at the May 25 Salon deWinchester.  I've made studies for several large paintings, and since that is another of my resolutions I guess I'll bust out one or two of those in June.  And I'd like to try abstracts and acrylics — maybe I'll combine those into one super-maddening effort.  In fact, might as well save that until it's god-awful hot to really make the experience furstrating!

Yet with all this clarity about what to do in the weeks ahead, I was stumped about what to do today.  For inspiration, I looked back through my photo files and reviewed the "hierarchy" of genres.  (Plus I wanted to use up a particular pair of paints in my palette.)  After I put all that in a mental jar and shook vigorously, I first opted for an orangey monochrome portrait of my friend Donna.  This explains the juvenile pun in the blog title.

When suddenly, I managed to pop those unwanted colors out of my palette — so at the last minute I elected to do a quick portrait study using a couple of new-to-me cobalt pigments.  In my defense, I painted this in under 45 minutes using only green, violet, and a touch of magenta.  The portrait depicts the great French artist Gustave Caillebotte, whose forgiveness I beg.

 

Caillebotte