March 9, 2011

Blue and Orange #1 - A brush strokes experiment

I love challenges that really stretch your limits and motivate you enough to come up with something different. This past week's challenge at Daily Paintworks was one such, and hands down one of the toughest paintings I have ever done. The challenge was to paint anything, subject doesn't matter, but by mixing a different color for every single stroke laid on the surface. 

Blue and Orange
Oil on Canvas, 6 by 12 inches

My head reeled at the very thought, as I for one get very easily tempted to pick up the smaller brushes and pore over the details. And my painting would've been a never ending soap opera if I had to do this with a small brush. For the uninitiated, what this technique meant was that I mix a color on my palette, and lay a stroke, again mix and so on. It makes you really think before you mix, and think really hard in terms of values. For someone totally not used to painting this way, it is very unsettling initially. But then I kind of found a rhythm and took the painting to completion amidst a lot of huffs and puffs. 

My set up was very simple, I wanted to make it as simple as possible and just picked up whatever was readily available. The effort was a lot more rewarding than the end result I would say, and it is something I will definitely try again. Let me know how you like it!

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