When I select a painting to copy at the National Gallery of Art I always try to stretch myself. I began this piece by Monet because I love it AND because the palette is so far out of my comfort zone. Monet is said to have disliked browns!!! I LOVE browns, ochres, umbers and all earth tones. As I did my research about this piece I shuddered when I laid out this palette of colors. They are: Lead White, Cadmium yellow light, Cadmium Yellow, Viridian Green, Emerald Green, French Ultramarine, Cobalt Blue, Alizarin Crimson, Vermillion and Ivory Black. I decided to only use those colors for this piece. So, along with the challenge of copying this piece I am also mixing colors I am not too familiar with using colors I am not used to using. It has given me the impetus to revisit making my own color charts as Richard Schmid suggests in his book "Alla Prima II" Making color charts has been on my "to do" list for some time and this exercise has opened my eyes to the value of that task.
Here is a picture of my painting and the original in the background. As usual there was quite a bit of traffic through the gallery. Many, many kind comments and well wishes from many, many different countries in many, many different languages. One of the things I like best about living in the area is the diversity.
