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Sunday, July 31, 2011

Flag Hill, Sunol Regional Wilderness Paintout with the CAC

 Flag Hill Summer ( Sunol RW) 14 x 21 watercolor

In July I spent a great Saturday with artists from the California Art Club at the Sunol Regional Wilderness. A nice breeze in the morning and a warm afternoon.  Flag Hill caught my eye. It had interesting rocks exposing the ridge structure underneath.
I thought a lot about the sky value in this one, the convention is to make the sky pale at the horizon, but when looking up at a ridge against the middle of the sky you do get the sense that the blue in the sky is a darker value than the gold on the hills. I pushed this as dark as I dared, I've ruined paintings in the past using french ultramarine to push the sky too dark.
I have a new favorite blue, which I purchased only because regular cobalt blue was out of stock, cobalt blue deep, which has a lot more strength as a mixer than regular cobalt.

6 comments:

Marian Fortunati said...

Another wonderful painting, Robin!!! You continually thrill me with your rich colors and patterns

Robin Purcell said...

Marian, congratulations on your paintings and successes also. I wish I could have gotten to the Gallup show, was there a good exhibit catalog I could order from Pepperdine?

Sharon Weaver said...

Hi Robin
This is a wonderful painting. Keep up the good work. I went to the Gallup show yesterday and it was great. It seems that procrastinating was a good thing because David was there documenting the show and he talked a great deal about his process and inspiration. Very interesting. So maybe there will be a video. There is a book from the show too.

Anonymous said...

Robin, I love the rich play you achieve of warm vs cool, both in the foreground and background. The value lifts the hill away from the viewer so beautifully.

Marian Fortunati said...

Thans, Robin....

Dave has a book of the exhibit and it is just FABULOUS!!!! All of the paintings plus a lot of information about the islands and the native plants and animals.

AnneG said...

This is so beautiful. I really think you'll like this article! Endangered Artists