Primary Colors Put To Work

Last seen on Friday. ( When we should have been being naughty. )

A magenta layer over the cobalt violet on the box.

The beginnings of the violet blue reflections over that earlier green.

And now gold and shiny. The stage is set.

Working in stages like this on the Godiva painting, results in several color shifts of the overall piece. Early on it looks like clouds and blues, then light golds and early cools. Here it looks like a primary color trio dominance. But most of this piece will in the end be brown and neutrals. The background is dark grey, the box on the left is brown and that is filled with dark chocolates . But I want depth. I want those neutrals each to have their own character. I want them to be a part of and yet differentiated from what is next to them.

So I am pushing with some complements. Those reflections in the box on the right are connections to the rest of the painting, just as the reflections that are soon to be painted in that last golden truffle sleeve connects it to the golden box surface below and the truffle sleeve next to it. No truffle or box is an island? Well, they kind of are, but related ones.

And you can see I have begun to intrude inside the box on the left. A totally dark brown area, but the highlights are blue. Cool so they recede, but the same blue of the sleeves that are closer and lighter over all. So what? So this will unify them. There are little calls and responses between elements that will make this piece work better for me. Small things maybe, but good things. And that under painting of green? It's related to the eventual grey that will go in the background to the right. That red ? Watch for the forward bon bon's little red stripe.

So whatever it is that I am painting is also a bit of the elements around it. Call it local color, call it unifying the composition, call it "call and response". Colors work in relationships. I like to use them to get what I want. We'll see how that works out.

Pick a piece of art, any piece of art...and look for the arrangements of complementary colors. Even subtle ones. Our eyes crave them actually. Kind of like Brush is craving getting on with this piece. So we better scoot.

Look around at what you've placed around you. Any complementary colors in the mix?