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Desert Glow

Voy Kay 15 Feb 2020

Tried something different then the odd oval and made a diamond shape of it. Canvas used was a 12"16". It was tough and almost depressing to realize that I made some errors again that I thought I had conquered a long time ago. In all, not very happy with the painting so guess this one will go to a raffle as well. Easiest were the bush and the cactus, the hardest were the giant rock, the pebbles and creating brown from green and red. The rock is simply awfull, I will do some restyling on that very soon.

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Comments

Romain Master of Portraits

Experimenting always pays off. ;) Congrats Voy to achieve these challenging paintings, leaving such spaces around focal/focus points. It feels somewhat scary to me.
Far from being an expert on rocks and stones, but for those I painted so far, rounded flat one ("cat tongue") were great for pebbles. For larger stones and rocks, it seems to be right to exagerate atypical geometric shapes with large edges by long brush strokes. My two cents. :)

Voy Kay Conqueror of Challenges

Dear Romain, you are giving good advice there. I used a filbert for the pebbles and it did create troubles. A softer cat tongue might have been a far better option. Concerning the rock, I guess I needed to create more explicit shapes indeed. I will try to compensate this soon by working on it with adding some black/dark stripes, thus giving it a better figure. Thanks so much for your advice , ALWAYS appreciated!
Concerning the diamond shape, it nears a lot the oval shape so that makes it very usable and interesting. You can even do this without contact paper and simply use masking tape and a newspaper! Have a go, it will be worth it! Till next one!

You got an amazing sky there! What is pink pigment? PR?? I like how you made clouds on the horizon line! This red color in the midground is amazing too! !
Cactus is very nice! The little grass and Bush under it, this looks like something new. New brush? Or new skill?

Voy Kay Conqueror of Challenges

Dear Sunnylady, so happy you love that sky. The pink shade is formed by using Alizarin crimson and whiping it multiple times over the liquid white. With that same mixture and adding some Phtalo blue, I get that lavender colours in the clouds. The clouds on the horizon were Bob's idea but it is a great reflection of what can really be found in nature. I live in the open countryside, edging a small city, and also relatively close by the sea so get to see those views a lot.
The cactus was a fun thing to do, although a bit tougher to paint without any liquid white. I added a little paint thinner to help get the shape in. And the grass was simply formed with leftover grey, mixed with some ochre and a little bit of T-white. With a (brand new) fan brush, I plugged the colours in and bristled some grassy edges out, finished by larger edging with a script liner.
Reminds of my next project .... maybe I should do some sea scenery again. Hmmm!

I really like it! I also liked that you changed the shape of the exterior.

Voy Kay Conqueror of Challenges

Ah, so many forms are possible, with a good cutter and some masking tape. Success!

I'm new to oil painting, and have not considered using a cutout. However, after seeing how great the diamond looks, I really want to try this now. Your art work and the inspiring comments on my pictures are encouraging me to branch out and try new creative things. Thank you.

Voy Kay Conqueror of Challenges

Same here GMRII, only began oil painting Dec 12th 2019, and now healthy addicted to it! So glad you love these different shapes in the paintings. I find them easier and better to do then ovals. And I can indeed encourage you in trying new things. Bob's techniques can be used on so many fields and variaties. Hope to see some from you soon, happy painting!

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