Morning at Lake Martin

 

I am glad I have a few days between teaching, so I shifted to my study mode and tried something new. I have noticed so many artists start their drawing with a highly saturated red. My stubborn engineering mind could not figure out why people do this. For many years, I have been strongly promoting that we start a painting black/white to get the drawing and value correct first, then put color on top of the tonal underpainting. I thought the intense red color would strongly affect the accuracy of the color we put on top of the red. This approach is rather irrational. However this time, it is the problem of the left-brain scientist. Rationality is not always the consideration of an artist. This start-with-red method is illogical for sure, but it does make sense. The bleed-through red underpainting makes the top color vibrating creating a dynamic color effects. It also make the average temperature of painting warmer. This way is a pre-compensation to my intrinsic tendency of painting too cool. So I used this new (for me) approach for this painting and loved it.