I have had a great time using a palette knife on this painting. I feel quite comfortable with it now, except the part where I'm figuring out how many cents' worth of paint are getting gobbled up every time I have to squeeze out more. Old Holland isn't what you use when you're painting thickly.
I went into studio time last night with one question: how can I really define what I see as the light shining warmly down into this canyon so that it makes sense for the boy to want to slide down that waterfall into the cold water below. The photo I was working from was taken in February and I can feel that it is the pale Spring light, yet my brother told me it was probably in the 80's that day (much like what we get here in Austin in February).
Noel and I discussed how the cooler sections of light on the water were a reflection of the sky, the warmer sections were reflecting the light on the rocks. I needed to make all of the canyon walls darker the way the iris would shut down when it is hit with too much light. And lastly, put some reflected light (bounce light) in the canyon walls that has elements of the color of the rock it's bouncing off of.
I managed all that in 2 1/2 hours and he said, "Sign it! You're done!" And now he's eager to see what I will come up with for my next project and how I'll use the palette knife. Not sure the palette knife will get much use in the next one, but I could be wrong...I often am.
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