Adhira In Greens And Reds

And I just wasn’t in the tight frame of mind today.  I started with the pad upside down, drawing an outline on the back of a previous painting and wondering why all the paper underneath was cockled.  Eventually I realised my error and started all over again.  But I was in too much of a hurry, resulting in an ugly hand, and too heavy with the pencil, so you can still see the remnants of some of my gridlines.

So it was pretty clear pretty early that this was going to be a writeoff.  So I thought I’d experiment with colour.  I decided to just use three reds and three green.  I started with the greens, field green in the darkest places, then leaf green, then apple green.  I roughly added poppy red to the field greens, fuchsia to the apple greens and Shiraz to the leaf greens, not worrying too much about whether I got it right every time and allowing colours to mix in places.  I finished by stroking in some random red and green marks here and there.  And then I wetted all the pencil marks and that was me done.

Obviously this is a writeoff and won’t be going in the shop window but how was the colour experiment?  Inconclusive, that’s what I’d say.  I’ve not managed to get any dark, neutral colours but this is all down to me wanting to get this completed and to pour out a Friday night beer.  If I’d taken my time, the colours might have worked better.  Even then, though, there’s something a bit boring about these two colours when you see them separately.  I think my inktense figures need some blue, purple or even brown in there to get the pulse racing.

Bad day today.  I need to get up earlier tomorrow and get out either the watercolours or the coloured pencils.