Meanwhile, we're still on a portrait kick. And we had a special treat today. Ellen had a painting of hers professionally framed—and we're in love! That's a museum quality deep mat with a quarter inch of paper framing the painted area with non-glare glass. But that's not the best of it. We love the painting with the complementary colors and the orange reflections on the dancers that are picked up by the softly glowing frame. This is a beautiful framing job—and a painting worthy of the effort.
Hard at work on her next masterpiece, Ellen does a second study of a portrait of her parents. This is another fine use of complementary colors. We especially like how the personalities of the sitters shine though.
And for all of us who are fixated on her llama, Ellen brought back the llama painting. She's overpainted the highly-textured purple llama and the whole scene drops into focus...without losing the llama!
Susan uses equally brilliant colors in this painting of two women enjoying friendship and flowers...all set against the background of a pineapple farm. What a lovely vacation memory!
Unlike Susan and her friend above, Elaine doesn't even know the subject of her portrait—probably why it fits in her People I Don't Know series. And her color choices are far less exuberant, too. This is basically two colors (complementary colors, of course), but used judiciously enough, that's really all you need.
If two or three colors seem minimalistic, just look at Steve's painting. It's only one color—and a unique one at that. Yes, if you recall, Steve ground up a bit of Hawaiian mud and blended that with gum arabic to make his own paint. This is part of Steve's Playing in the Mud series—and it's going to be amazing!
Tony's back with a soft and subtly colored painting of a sea gull. The pops of color at the beak and feet are perfect against the greys.
Here's another of Tony's subtle and dreamy landscapes. Look closely and you'll see a lot of color in the grey rocks, stones and sky. And need we mention that a lot of it is complementary colors?
Sara continues to paint every day, with incredible results. Inspired by a glimpse of dogwoods behind some other trees, this lovely landscape took nearly all week, but it's worth the effort.
Today, Sara is revisiting her interior from last week. She's only begun, but already we are in awe of the way she mixes color. Zoom in and see if you don't agree.
Hector is taking a break from his pale, soft abstracts. Here he layers vibrant color and shape. He finds this exercise meditative and relaxing and it's obvious he's enjoying himself thoroughly.
Beth has finished her second color wheel...the really useful one with the tints, tones, shades and hue. We love the surprise pop of red-orange in the yellow-green space.
You'll recognize this as the "match the color swatch" exercise. Beth's nailed it—you can tell when the swatches and the painted simulations are indistinguishable.
And, just because she had a bit of paint left over, Beth played around on a scrap sheet. Not exactly complementary, but what a beautiful color pair!
So did all our beautiful colors remind you of coloring Easter eggs or little girls in pastel spring bonnets? Remember, we'll be off for a week (next week) for spring break. But we'll be back the week after and look forward to seeing you then.
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