The Death of Color

This painting is about the death of color. I find what happens with a sunset very interesting. As darkness comes the hue is sucked out of most color leaving dull browns and black. There is huge contrast created when yellow and orange sunlight pierces through the shadows. I was trying to achieve a balanced painting of dull and bright. I tried to suck the color out of anything that wasn't facing the sun. I did this by adding whites, complements, and black. When I felt the intensity levels for dull and bright were balanced the painting was finished.

For my next painting I want to try a self portrait. I plan to use red and green for my pigments. I plan to paint myself in my brown and yellow shirt. First I will cover the whole painting in red. I will add green and white to this red to get a brown and pink flesh. I hope to use these to these two colors to create a proper tone, value and intensity without having to mix in any other hue or black. This way the colors will appear to darken and dull naturally. I will be mixing other hues for my brown and yellow shirt, but I think that is pretty much it. While mixing the flesh it will be a challenge to keep the face from turning green,...it is important that I keep my mixtures on the red side of the spectrum.