A weeks worth of paint and canvas - a learning curve 902 & 903

I came across this old cropped Koi photo from one of my first visits to Maymont's Koi ponds in 2010. It got my attention again because it has a subtle and mysterious aspect I want in my next few paintings. Then I thought it might be fun messing with it in Photoshop.....see what comes of it.

 Maymont Koi 2010

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To my surprise some rather nice results using "curves" tool.....all I need is a printer, some frames and I'm in business...:=) I can see how this would be an easy transition for a water colourist to make, especially with its very cool Asian slant. As an oil painter it has my attention too. I like the idea of playing around with it in oil even if it goes nowhere. Who knows, it could become a road map to the "now what" question bugging me.

FIRST MOVE - CANVAS 902

I chose #2, the most conservative of the group as my first move on this project. The object, copy it, get a feel for it and do it fairly large at 56x48. See how my normal process and materials work pared down as much as possible.

902 Koi 56x48 oil on linen (6-1-14)

I can't say this is my most favorite painting in the world but my new alkyd white helped a great deal here. I spent 3 days on it. Each day it was dry and very easy to do seamless blending maintaining a wet-in-wet look - transparent colour moves - not exactly glazing. It was kind of a back and forth thing of very thin to heavier more saturated paint albeit subtle in nature. I really wanted to find out how my normal process worked without introducing new painting instruments or accidental influences like splashing or dripping paint or flooding it with solutions to break my pigments down.

 SECOND MOVE - CANVAS 903

This time  I'll use #4 above , a more extreme colouring than my first on a fresh 56x48 canvas

903-2 End of day 2 (6-14-14)

903 Hot Koi 56x48 oil on linen (6-15-14)

LOL.......I got caught up in #4 and its saturated colours... it was fun using colour beyond my norm! Actually, far more challenging than you might think because even with a good reference pure pigment can look dull. So it took a number of colours playing against each other to pull it off and quite a challenge at that. In some cases its almost needed to be neon in nature.....not sure I ever got that although pleased with what I did get!

My final photo above was shot without artificial light, only interior daylight. Boy, when I put it in pure sunlight, like the detail below, this thing swings!

Detail in sunlight

This was a great colour exercise, however I'm not sure how it fits into what I'm trying to accomplish as an artist. As an artist I want a change, I'm not sure what that is, other than I know primarily it's to keep my interest in the game. Colour would certainly be a core element of anything I do.

I'm still using everything I've learned working in oil over the last 5 years. I typically use a prismatic approach to light... here its raw and exposed....even so, rules are much the same, so it does make one wonder what can come of it?

One of the things I had to work on was getting it to read well at 30 feet.......it was good close-up, it had paint quality and interesting surface texture....even touchable, but that's with my nose in the canvas.....not so much at a distance. The flaws show up so it tells me the rules really are the same.....

The real question, do I continue, take a break or retreat.

Later.......