New Mexico Farm, 14″ x 19″, Pastelmat brown

I am now happily in my new studio at Artists and Makers, getting ready for Open Studios weekend tomorrow through Sunday. But on  Tues. I got to spend my first day painting and I decided to paint a picture that I gave to my class in black and white.  It was interesting to see what they did with it re cropping and color. When I went back and looked at the color image, I was surprised at how much I liked it. So I decided to use it pretty much as it was with some adjustments to the composition.

Interestingly, this is my second picture in a row that uses primary colors. I hardly ever use this palette, but here it is once again (after the Chinatown picture).

I also didn’t do any underpainting on this as I was working on toned Pastelmat. It was fun to have a minimum of drawing to do and be able to get right into the color. So I pretty much went straight for the color with the exception of the roofs, which were all very gray. I used a light green, then some pink and blue and varied them, using brighter color on the bright red building at the right.

It was really fun to finally work in my new space with a good friend and such beautiful light!  I now have windows on the north and west. I was worried about possible glare, but it’s working fine.  I hope that some of you in the area can come by this weekend.  I’ll have this painting and my New Hampshire Farm on view, along with three walls of framed paintings, new reproductions and some small giclee cards.  Now, if we can just not have a snow storm on Saturday, that would be really nice!