February Artworks

Well, February has not been a busy month for creating art for me. I have managed to paint a few acrylic paintings in my spare time.

These are all acrylic paintings on canvas. The Horses, Silver Chaser with Pears and  Roosevelt Island paintings are larger: 16x20 and the Red Poppy and Orchids are somewhat smaller 11x14. The Red Poppy is a tribute to Georgia O'Keefe, in case you recognized the work. I enjoy doing tribute paintings because it helps me understand the artist and their process. Point being: paint what inspires you, rather than waiting for the big inspiration which cramps the creative flow.

I enjoy working in acrylics because they have the same depth of color as oils without the excessive drying time and odor. 

Discovering the Color of Copper

I need to discover the colors used to convey to the viewer the color of copper as I am painting a lot of it lately. As you know, articles made of copper look very different from each other in terms of surface, texture and color. There are shiny pieces, dull and oxidized pieces, reflective qualities to deal with on the shiny ones and color differences in the range of copper colors from yellow to pink to greenish/bluish.

That said, I begin to understand what colors I might want to put on my palette to convey the article I am painting; a rather new, lacquered "oil" kitchen decanter made of copper with a brass ornament on the front. Solder joints are visible in some areas and it resembles the color of pewter. There are raised ridges around the circumference with a tapered design wider at the bottom finished with a brass handle. The design reminded me of an old antique oil can.

So, I first chose Alizarin Crimson is my red of choice owing to its transparency and ability to mix well with transparent greens to make transparent brown tones required in the underlayer of the copper article, and if I want some warmth I can add some transparent yellow to this mixture. I have found its always best to start the paintings with transparent colors and move towards opaque ones later on. Alizarin also mixes well with any transparent yellow to make a vibrant transparent orange. You can add some Titanium White to the orange mixture to obtain an opaque orange color but titanium white does dull the fieriness somewhat. I use this mixture as well as a good Cadmium Orange for highlights and glazes. Adding yellow over the orange makes for even greater highlighted areas. Pure white doesn't look good on copper but you can add a transparent colored glaze over the top of the white.

I like to use Phthalo Magenta in the shadows along with Burnt Umber. Viridian and Alizarin mixed with white makes a highlight to use in the shadow areas that isn't too bright, but still warm. You can move from warm to cool with these colors. The reflective nature of copper suggests cool next to warm all over the surface.