Place & Time & Yellow

Monrovia Canyon Park February 2016.  Although I think they aren't much as paintings, they serve to remind me of a warm and  beautiful day, right down to details like butterflies and cellphone reception.   Which really kind of sums up the joys of painting outdoors on location.  You are in the scene; you are in the moment; you are deeply involved with what you are seeing as well as feeling and smelling, moment by moment as the sun moves through the sky, and the shadows across the ground.

Like many of my contemporaries, I begin stories with "maybe I've already told you this. . ."  But Blogger has a handy search feature, so we need not worry.  A few years ago, I met another painter.  I first encountered him and his work at street fair kind of art show.  I liked his work best, I suppose because of his chosen subjects, compositions, colors and paint application.  Later on, I attended a demonstration of his and took his first ever plein air class.  He taught some good practical things and he was encouraging.  As time passed we painted together a few times before he moved out of the country.  That's the background.  One time we painted at Caltech.  He looked at my painting and said I painted pretty well, but why didn't I use yellow?  He said people respond to yellow and that yellow sells paintings.  This seemed kind of funny, but I've told it to other people, and when I see a painting that everybody seems to like, it is not surprising if yellow predominates.

Like most of my lessons in painting and in life, I learn them and remember them, but they bounce around in my head for a long time before I actually apply them.  When I paint out now, I almost always use yellow.  I figure out where my lights and highlights will be, where my shadows will be, and where I can use yellow.  I started that sometime after these paintings.