Thursday, October 6, 2011

Silver Bowl Orange Slices Green Cloth SOLD

Another 10 x 10 painting that I did for consideration for the Vashon Allied Arts Auction held in September.  This one has lots of juicy reflections in the shiny silver bowl and some lovely saturated colors in the oranges.  And a fun bit of lavender in the shadow side of the orange slice and on the far side of the shiny bowl.   Even though the green cloth covers the largest area of the painting, I think the dominant color is orange because it is so intense or saturated.
A brief note about color: pigments have three qualities; hue - that means the name of the color like hansa yellow or azo orange or burnt sienna; value - the lightness or darkness of a color; and saturation - how much of something else is mixed with the pigment- a yellow straight out of the tube is more saturated than one mixed with white.  So the oranges in this painting are almost straight out of the tube, whereas the green is mixed with yellow ochre and white and purple and blue and a few other colors I can't remember.
Why create dominance? Having a dominant color gives the painting a theme; dominance organizes the composition and moves it away from chaos; it makes the painting stronger. And a painting can have dominance in any and all elements - shape, size, direction, color, value, line and texture.