Thursday, October 9, 2008

Limited palette painting

contemporary rural landscape original painting in acrylic by atul pande
Since I can only paint when I am not busy with my full-time 'day job', several days often go by without my touching a brush. Even when there is a long gap I still keep thinking about composition and technique, working them over in my mind for when I do get to my studio. Upon picking up a brush I often feel driven to quickly complete a piece. Nothing helps this more than having a simple composition and a limited palette.

Three Trees is a small piece done with just four colors (dioxazine purple, light blue permanent, chromium green and yellow ochre, plus white gesso) and one filbert brush. While doing this painting, I roughly counted the brush strokes and I am pretty sure that there were less than 50. Next time I will be aiming for less because it sems to lead to cleaner color.

Three Trees, Acrylic on canvas board, 5" X 7", $40 (unframed)

3 comments:

  1. Limited color choices and limited strokes! You really like a challenge. That is such a good idea, a great way to force growth!

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  2. Way to go using a limited palette and brush strokes. I like the simplicity and the way you achieved good depth, light and shadows. Do you also do timed paintings?

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  3. Carol and Ann: Thanks for the comments. I had not done timed paintings -- until yesterday! Just as I was getting ready to catch a flight, I did do an 8"x10" knife painting in just about 20 minutes. It was too wet for me to take a picture then, but I will post it when I get back next week. Thanks for your interest in my paintings.

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