Monday, March 10, 2014

Need advice on BLUE

My sweet big sister sent get well flowers (re broken ribs) last week, and they arrived in a cobalt blue vase, my favorite. Today, with a rare day of full sunshine, and a cessation of pain, I took the flowers that were still happy and started taking source photos in the sun room.  Loving the blue, I went hunting for background fabrics (I'm not a collector of such things like I know many of you are).  I found two shawls,  deep blue wool and  turquoise silk, and threw  them all together in the intense sunshine.

(Special note here: the flowers, the vase, AND the two shawls, I realized, were all gifts over the years  from this wonderful big sister! Am I a lucky 'baby' sister?)

So now I have 30+ source photos which, because they all have my favorite colors (and sunshine), are breathtaking to me.  I'd like to tackle at least ONE of them soon. But I've not painted blue very often or very successfully. So, I'm asking:

Looking at this source photo, typical of the ones I will choose from, do you have suggestions of the blues I should be using, and how to use them, to give them the life they deserve? (BTW - In stock I currently have  ultramarine, cobalt, cerulean, indigo,  and pthalo blues).

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6 comments:

  1. debwardartMarch 11, 2014 at 1:35 PM

    This one looks like one of my set ups! How much fun it will be to paint! If I were you, I would probably use only one of the scarves - and that would be the lovely silk one - and I'd use thalo blue on the scarf and cobalt and ultramarine and perhaps some indigo on the vase. Hope this helps.

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    1. Katherine HarraMarch 11, 2014 at 1:56 PM

      And my fantasy is, that my result will look like one of your paintings! Oh, wouldn't that be ... yes, exactly, a fantasy. I'll have to remember to figure out how to make it look like one of MINE. I am truly in love with all these blues. And will paint some little samples and tests soon to see how your suggestions work, thanks.

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  2. lauraMarch 11, 2014 at 5:56 PM

    Be still my heart: I have the exact same reaction as you, Katherine--the blues, the light ...! And the flowers are lovely too.
    With so many blues, I think I would (at least in theory; my execution's usually not up to my thinking) think of them comparatively, in terms of warm and cool, not as specific blue? (then you can do plenty with the colors you have) and--as a teacher of mine always advised me--add other colors to them; not enough to make them not-blue but enough to make them not-only-blue.
    I especially like the acidy light green of the stems and leaves against the blue!
    Can't wait to see what you do with this--I know it'll be gorgeous!

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  3. lauraMarch 11, 2014 at 6:03 PM

    and, p.s., what a great big sister!

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  4. Kathy WirthMarch 12, 2014 at 7:27 PM

    Sounds like you have all the blues you could want. Might want to limit it to two or three though. This will be a dynamite painting. No pressure! Just take some time to work out your composition carefully first.

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    1. Katherine HarraMarch 13, 2014 at 4:50 AM

      Kathy, your advice is spot on, about slowing down and working out the composition. I didn't feel well yesterday but wanted to paint. I started splashing my blue paints around on little scraps of paper. Disaster. I guess I wanted to pretend I was Laura (of Laura's Watercolors blog), although I know she doesn't get her wonderful loose paintings from "splashing". I will go back to painting my way in a day or two, and hopefully have a better result.

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