White Azaleas

This is a 6X6 original oil painting on gessoboard.  It is available at auction at dailypaintworks for an opening bid of $45.  White Azaleas. https://www.dailypaintworks.com/fineart/charlotte-fitzgerald/white-azaleas/640019

Patchwork Fields

I love the way farms are divided into a patchwork of fields depending on the crop planted in each field.
This is a 6X6 original oil painting offered at auction on Dailypaintworks with an opening bid of $45.https://www.dailypaintworks.com/fineart/charlotte-fitzgerald/patchwork-fields/693219

Edges

In Alla Prima, Richard Schmid talks about the importance of how you treat the edges in a painting.  He feels that many painters ignore this important area.  When you focus your eyes on an object, everything in your peripheral vision is less distinct.  A camera, on the other hand, will produce a photo with everything in crisp detail.  Your focal point or main area of interest will naturally have harder edges than the rest of the painting.  If everything is equally distinct, then that pulls your eye away from where you intend to lead it.  If two adjacent areas are close in value the edge will have less contrast.  Jeanie Dobie, in How to Make Color Sing, suggests that each shape should only have one step in value different from the one next to it if possible.  Save the largest contrasts in value for the focal point.  Another way to soften an edge is to carefully brush along the edge until the desired softness is achieved.  Charles Reed also talked about the importance of soft edges in places to tie the figure to the background.  He says to look for places where the value in the figure is close to that in the background and lose that edge by brushing the areas together.  In Orange Sky I kept most of values close together rather than softening edges.  I relied on color contrast to create a focal point, but that is a topic for another post.  https://www.dailypaintworks.com/fineart/charlotte-fitzgerald/orange-sky/685135

Late Afternoon Light is a 6X6 original oil painting on gessoboard.  It is offered for auction on Dailypaintworks with an opening bid of $45.
https://www.dailypaintworks.com/fineart/charlotte-fitzgerald/late-afternoon-light/692838

I used many layers of paint.  I applied fresh layers sometimes over dried paint and sometimes over wet paint.  Some areas are blended while other areas are untouched and other areas scraped back to create an interesting surface texture as well as complex colors.

Mark Making

Some artists choose to smooth the individual strokes of paint until they blend together, but applying paint in gestural movements and letting each stroke remain gives an energy to the painting.  This painting is offered for sale at Dailypaintworks for an opening bid of $45.
Waves. 6X6 oil on archival gessoboard
https://www.dailypaintworks.com/fineart/charlotte-fitzgerald/waves/692427

Complementary Contrast

Complementary contrast is using colors that are opposite each other on the color wheel, and this is a variation on that idea.  The cool blues, greens, and purples create an environment for the warm oranges to become the center of interest.  Most of the painting is painted in a middle value with a small darker area  across the bottom.  Blue and orange are complementary colors, but instead of using just blue I chose to use a color chord of blue and the two adjacent colors on the color wheel. The thick texture of the paint provides additional interest.

New Purple Boots

I took a photo of this little girl who seemed so proud of her new purple boots.  It is the inspiration for the painting New Purple Boots.  Below is my painting.  The shadow helps to tie the figure to the edge of the picture.