Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Interesting colors

Shore Break
9 x 12 soft pastels on Art Spectrum Colourfix
Miki Willa
I have started doing a bit of research into the history of western painting. One of the things I have discovered is the similarity in pallets from the earliest cave paintings until well into the early middle ages. The predominance of umbers, gold, and blues is evident in the great animal drawings on the cave walls, the Egyption tomb paintings, the great Etruscan murals, and the early paintings of Giotto. The absence of most of the other colors we are used to seeing today give a wonderfully integrated feeling to these ancient works of art.
For today's painting, I decided to try and limit myself primarily to this pallett. I added the dark purple for the cliff to create a contrast. This painting is of a great shore break on the north shore of Moloka'i where the rocky heads create exciting water movement.

3 comments:

Tom Willa said...

What a dynamic painting of the shore break. The fact that the undertow there is significant to sweep you into the channel between island is captured. I like it, I think you should paint pipeline, or Turtle Bay.
I Love you, Miki.
Happy Valentine's Day sweetheart.

N Poucher said...

Nice work! You captured the energy of the water very well.

Making A Mark said...

This is very effective Miki - both in terms of colour scheme and pastel painting!