Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Mountains Trip - Paintings #9 and #10 - Autumn

These abstracts were inspired by being in the magnificent autumn surroundings of the Blue Ridge. The colors were the best we've seen in years. They are Autumn 1 and Autumn 2, in my mind.

Both of these images were started from the same Jerry Garcia funeral scene as paintings #7 and #8, but I took them in a different direction, towards abstraction. The first was a personal challenge to use more red, a color I've noticed I don't use much. I'm not sure why, but I prefer blue, green, yellow, orange and purple, without red except as a minor accent. So I pushed red in this one, though daughter told me it really is more like rose or pink. I claim that's the paper showing through...

The second piece was more of a struggle, and I thought it was done at two earlier stages, when it actually still needed more. This painting continued over about three days, the longest of any piece while we were on vacation, and it was the last piece I finished on the trip. I still don't know it I like it or not. It was fun to paint.

I wrote this on Saturday night, and Grenouille won't post this time because I've had too much tequilla. He gets very quiet if I have more than one glass of wine or two beers...

This will hit my blog on Election Day - I've got my fingers crossed, and I'm saying my prayers...

4 comments:

L'Adelaide said...

I am very tired of the election stuff but tonight I am happy as it's appearing to be over and Obama won!!! I am not a political person but there is something wonderful about the election of this man and I am so pleased to see it's actually almost a "for sure"!

loving the colors of your abstracts and think the red suits them nicely! I don't use lots of red either although I do love rose...it's that little bit of blue that gets me every time ;)

Steve Emery said...

Linda - I actually thought that perhaps I just prefer the other side of the color wheel from red, and so it's like the most foreign country and thus not comfortable - but that would be green, and I find that green is a color I also have a hard time using well.

I just like blue and purple - and yellow and orage - best. It's that simple.

So I know what you mean about the little bit of blue in rose... It's really just a near neighbor to purple, that way.

Summer Kinard said...

Red is my very favorite color, and I love these abstracts! Autumn is a great name for them.

Steve Emery said...

Summer - Having seen your home office, I can well believe that red is your favorite color! Of course now it's the nursery...