Study in Tone and Color [OIL PAINTING SERIES]

[PAINTING]

Study in Tone and Color: Painting, Oil on Canvas

Medium: Oil on Canvas // Role: Artist (painter)

Objective and Background: 

These paintings represent my experimentation layering color and learning new ways to create tone. The painting above began as a landscape painting of people walking on a beach, a work for which I was very focused on achieving tonal accuracy and fine detail. I was using a particular vantage point at a beach as a reference, hoping to capture the warm, red hues of shadows cast near the dunes at dusk. After working on it for a few weeks, I completely shifted my approach, painting over the entire background and using my original color application as a base for tone and texture while I layered over it entirely, keeping this one child in a yellow coat as a subject. I became immersed in this new method I was trying, so I started a second painting, similar in subject and structure, working on the two simultaneously. The painting below is my experimentation with cooler tones — a counter-piece to the original painting that emphasizes warm hues. Both paintings, however, utilize the same color palette. I achieved two very different tonal outcomes while using the same palette with just a few base colors for mixing.

Process and Outcome: 

These paintings represent a turning point in my approach to oil painting: I began growing frustrated with my own inability to capture the essence of the colors in the landscape even though I felt I was accurately depicting the shadows. I changed course, abandoned my original plan and painted with the goal of embracing the way this landscape made me feel rather than attempting to record the exact way it looked on my canvas. This series changed the way I approach painting subjects and landscapes. I now allow myself to become more physically involved in the process of applying paint and mixing color, leading with intuition and impulse.