Naples Yellow FTW!

"Shenandoah Mountains" 24x36 oil on gallery wrapped canvas (in progress) I worked on mainly the sky for my session yesterday. The sky is a deep clear blue with wispy clouds, yet there's an area of moisture right in the center that needed just the right hue to represent what was going on with the clouds, moisture and sunlight. And Naples Yellow is just the color to bring in there. It has a bit of a peachy tint that works well with your blues for creating atmosphere. I mixed it with ultramarine blue at first, but got it too gray. Mixing with Schveningen Blue (Thalo), which is an Old Holland oil color, brought in more of the turquoise excitement I was looking for. It was a dance of mixes across the canvas as the light changed across the big blue bowl of a sky. It looks really intense against the blocking in of the foreground, but never fear. It'll all come together (she says confidently) in the next few days. I can't wait to get into the purples and russets and golds of the trees, but know that I have to go slowly and with a light hand or I'll end up with a rougher painting than I'd like. That is an issue that plagues me since my primary paint spreading tool is a palette knife, not a paintbrush.