Painting Again!
It is so nice to have the show season over and have the time to get back to the easel again. I have several commissions to complete and am looking forward to a quiet period in the studio. Alaska’s darkness is almost at its winter solstice, the pitch-black warmed by the glow of outdoor Christmas lights reflecting on the snow. It is a joy to look out my studio windows and see the sparkle of lights all around.
I listen to music while I paint and today I’m using my favorite acrylic on a hardboard surface. My palette is very limited, I mix all my own greens, oranges and purples and do not use black. Through the years I have found that a warm and a cool of each of the primary colors with white and burnt umber are enough to create nearly any color on earth. Endless shades and tints can be made with these colors and a limitless variety of greys can be made by adding a touch of the compliment. You can spot a budding artists work immediately by the use of premixed colors. It is garish. When I teach, which is not often these days, my students are miserable when I tell them to take away all the premixed green, orange and purple. They whine that without these colors it is so much more work! They are still too new to painting to see the subtle differences.
When I’m fully immersed in painting I find myself transported into a “zone” of creativity and interruptions can cause a devastating loss of time and concentration. Hundreds of combinations of paint mixtures are racing through my head and my hand can’t keep up with the pace. Dots upon dots, the technique of pointillism, are scattered in a seeming random pattern over the surface until the under sketch is obliterated. Therefore, my privacy is closely guarded. I take a break for lunch and dinner, but my day is not always over in the evening. Sometimes I paint late into the night.
To keep from reaching too high or stooping too low I turn the board sideways or upside down as I work. It doesn’t really matter which side is up, for a composition must work from all angles to be good! So with the paint waiting, the music calling, I bid you good day and sign off for now. God Bless.
Alaska Artist, Gail Niebrugge
