Emerald Musings

Emerald Musings
Oil on linen • 9" x 12" • Sold

Here is a recently-finished painting of mine, Emerald Musings. This lady is a coordinator at Starkweather Arts Center in Romeo, MI., but also frequently serves there as a model for their live painting sessions.

From the bottle to the iridescent peacock feathers, to the jeweled necklace, to the subtle hues of the seat-back pattern, I greatly enjoyed painting all of the various greens!

Gently squint at the piece. You'll notice that the areas containing the highest value contrast and the sharpest edges are at the inside of the wrist and at the lady's jaw. These attention-grabbers help nudge the viewer's eyes toward the picture's most important elements, the face and hand.

I strove to keep my flesh tone mixtures simple, but introduced a color I hadn't used much for skin—cadmium lemon, a very cool yellow. Mixing it with varying proportions of alizarin crimson, ultramarine blue and white can produce beautiful skin tones.