The Searchers Again

Most of today’s painting came from three primaries: French ultramarine, quinacridone magenta and Indian yellow. You can tell straight away that this one’s in the same key as Comfortably Numb from a week or two ago. As well as those, there’s some burnt umber and raw sienna in the rocks and the sand. And some salt for special effects.

Unlike in my earlier Western paintings, I’ve not used Payne’s grey as the main colour in the silhouettes. Instead I made greys and browns from my three primaries in an attempt to get everything working together. Because the silhouette colour had so much in common with the thee primaries mixed in with it, it ended up as more of an impressionist painting than a Steve Ditko job with the space art in the silhouettes.

For my starting sketch, I used the gridding technique for the first time, dividing up my paper and the original still into 64 rectangles and copying over box by box.  I think it’s cheating but it worked.

Apart from the sketch, what worked? Well, I like the rock on the left and the foreground. The horse and rider on the left come out really well in the impressionist style (a lucky accident). The horse on the right isn’t so good, with the impressionist paints looking pretty random (which they were). And the sky is a bit overworked, with sharp edges in too many places. And I’m wondering whether I did the right thing mixing the grey/brown from three primaries. It’s a vibrant neutral colour, but could it be a bit too vibrant? Was Payne’s grey required just to tone it all down a bit?

Overall, I thought this one was good enough to frame & put up for sale.  And it sold on the day it was put up for sale, along with two other Western paintings.