Grateful notices: Color at the Lake, oil on canvas, 36 x 36 in.

Color at the Lake

Oil on canvas, 36 x 36 inches

Exhibited: Sorelle Gallery, Westport, Connecticut

My thanks to the collector of this oil.

About this oil:

There are times when I walk into the studio with a real hunger for color. I used this composition as a vehicle to explore autumn hues and push them to a new place. I purposely played the yellows down, allowing the focus to stay with the mauves and oranges primarily.

Yellow is a color that I have spent a lot of time with. It’s a very engaging way to make areas like skies and fields really stand out. So I made an assignment for myself, omitting the bright yellows and working from the remaining autumn palette.

OK, some yellows showed up anyway. The toned-down yellow in the sky created a surprising light effect when combined with the pale yellow and pine trees on the left. That combination was very important to this composition, creating more pattern and contrast.

I was very pleased with the results and the resulting color combinations were a real benefit to some of my other canvases in progress. So much for the no-yellow zone, but it came out much better than I first imagined.