032512_WIPs...

Here's the work in progress stuff I've got going on at this moment. They're all probably about 1 hr into painting. 

It's interesting to me how while they're more abstract like this you tend to just see the palette that I'm using, rather than the subject matter. Especially looking at them in thumbnail form. I find myself slowly migrating away from brighter colors. I think I originally gravitated toward them because I was excited to learn and understand color better. Now that I have a little bit better of a handle on things, I'm interested in pursuing more earthy color palettes, just because I don't really know how to approach them. So I've been doing speedpaintings! These are each like 15 minuters

The biggest problem for me in pursuing different palettes I think is going to be figuring out how to work with value in that way. When you're working with separated highly contrasting colors, it's a lot easier to create distinct shapes and depth in space. 

As soon as you start using more chromatically similar colors, some other form of contrast, be it texture, value, or just simple design has to step up to fill the gap. I think why this sketch was a failure is because I'm trying to create a sense of depth and space just by choosing different colors and hoping thats enough, but because I'm limiting their saturation and overall vibrancy, they're basically a painting confined to two values, and those aren't even descriptive of their position in space! It would have worked better if at least everything in the foreground was dark and the background was light.

These are my thoughts, please share yours if you're so inclined. Or if you're reading this.

eth.