In my blog, I am trying various color schemes to expand my painting vocabulary.  To that end, I am selecting a different color scheme/limited palette each week and basing three little 8 x 6 paintings upon that color palette.  If you have any suggestions of color palettes I should try, please email me at nvenhuizen@gmail.com. ( I’d love to have a comment section on this page, but I haven’t yet figured out how to do that!)

This week I decided to try a pink and green color scheme.  These wouldn’t ordinarily be the colors which I would choose for depicting the following scenes. I am, however, finding that my paintings have gotten more interesting as I’ve assigned myself color schemes to try.  It has helped me get away from the ubiquitous blue sky/ green trees paintings- and has pushed me to try different colors and, consequently, given me a greater vocabulary to express the mood of the scenes I’m painting.  After all-if all I wanted was a literal interpretation of a scene, I could take a photograph!  The colors I used in the following paintings were-

Viridian

Alizarin Crimson

Yellow Ochre

White

A small bit of my dark mixture( I keep this mixture premixed in tubes.  It is a dark color made from Alizarin Crimson, Cadmium Yellow, and Ultramarine Blue.)

I was so tempted to use some Cadmium Yellow as highlights in the trees, but- as I know I would have overdone it- it would have overpowered my Green-Pink Color Scheme. 

Uphill Climb  8 x 8 $40

Trees Along Shore 7 x 5. $25

Spring Path. 7 x 5. $25