more colour testing . . . This is so fast & FUN!

I've been loking for a way to speed up my Home Portraits and this may help tremendously.  At the very least it gets me to the first proof print in a number of hours rather than days.  It allows me to create a colour palette specific to the image to then use for the detail work without straying far from the proof print! 

Here is the Home Portrait proof test I worked out yesterday in about 3 hours.  I saved the Mixer Palettes which were different for each version.  I'll do screen grabs of the next one I post.  Meanwhile here are the 3 versions of this charming cottage with the subtle colour differences that don't really LOOK that different but the "dropper #'s"  are quite different!

colour in a painting . . .

. . . is different than thinking or "recognizing" colours.  That last Home Portrait was so unsatisfying because of the colours.  The building was red brick.  The vegetation was green. The sky was blue.  BUT . . . why was that nowhere near the experiance of the scene?


I guess it struck me as I was watching a show on Modigliani - why did he get a likeness when his "formula" was so graphic?  Why did he remove so much detail? Even the pupils of the eyes were gone after a while.   I drifted off pondering these things, musing on that horrid home painting - musing why it was so flat and primitive and really, to me, boring.  If I manage to market this product - I'll get lots of red brick, summer portraits in this area so I better find some way of making them beautiful.  

I desaturated the painting - it was distorted.  The greys were very uneven, ungrounded.  I wondered if that was a result of the colour palette.  Every colour was represented - almost evenly and veery highly saturated too.  In attempting to define each element in the painting I was isolating each one.  The "lost line" is hard to define with opposing colours.  I really need to find a way to leave the colour till the end of the process.  So if I decide to start the image in basically a monochrome . . . not greyscale NO MOOD - that was abhorant to me.  I decided I should focus on an initial wash of the canvas, then blendup to a colour that represents the element.  


EXPERIMENT #1

 

So here is the test pic.  Is this image blue? green?  or yellow?  It is not red although I might play with that to learn more.

  

I think they are all very different. 

I've suspended work on the red brick Home Portrait.  The prospect is a Landscape architect!  He will OBVIOUSLY change the yard. What's the purpose of wrestling with a red&green painting (my least fav colours)? So Back to the drawing board (pun?)

Here's Charlotte:

 

And Jeff:

Home Portrait - CtyRd 23

How to begin?

Here is one of the many reference photos - I guess the one that most captures the experiance of the property.
So, given the restraints of cost: printing myself to canvas, framing with a generic "fine art" 11"x14" frame, I am bound to compost for that final 'product'. Tricky to create as the property is large with many foundation plants but no flowers to brighten up the painting. By comparison, the house is small - the gingerbread mouldings and old brick are what gives the charm.  Sooooo . . .

This is the basic layout. I added peonies (carefree in this climate) to the front border as well as opening up an inviting pathway. I framed the composition with suggestions of landscaping from the rest of the yard while making the house large enough to  paint the details of moulding and brickwork.  I wanted to retain the dynamic diagonal of the road edge and added chicory - little pieces of sky that are ubiquitous because it increases the drama of this otherwise humble abode.

I could keep refining this stage for weeks but my deadline is framed in 6 days from now and working 3 jobs renders that a luxury not possible now.

I met a friendly volunteer this morning while waiting for an estimate on a repair to the clock and turn signals in my car.
Thank you Peter!

QP reversed Painting the highlights with a dark BG

is slower.  I am also having trouble making the aquaintance of fresh subjects.  After rather icy treatment by the "cocktail waitress" at Miss Lilly's Cafe, I am now back at the friendly Bean Counter Cafe.

So, here is the QP-du jour - moi as usual these days and again pushing the funvelope.  Dark BG's definately take longer and this one too 1.5 hours.  By setting the colour-space settings in Painter to AdobeRGB instead of my Huey calibration, I get a more acurate paint colour.  It is still a bit washed out though.
I am still concerned with maintaining likeness - miles to go on that road . . . .

Self QP - wish the colour would stay the same from the painting in Painter . . .

And yes more discontent from this blog template - unable to add a table to enable text to the right of the image without editing the HTML.

Us little monkeys will always create negative & positive out of every situation. . . .

Peggy DeWit - successful photographer here in the County (on top of taking Wonderful photos) - came over to me here in the Bean Counter Cafe - introduced me as a "fantastic artist who paints on the computer" (blush, thank you Peggy) to a woman with a small grant to study & aid small business in this area.  "Enterprise Facilitation Project" - something I would like to know more about.