In this painting of Peapod, the feline, and Bella, the Bernie, the structural composition is pretty well decided, but the color composition is still unresolved and the painting is still very much in progress. When I'm working on a painting, I am not so much seeing a scene as I am seeing various shapes of various colors in an arrangement. There must be both tension and balance- harmony and conflict. Color shapes interact with one another to create this energy dynamic and cause the eye to "dance" on the painting. I am seeking this balance of energies in the colors now, using Photoshop to try out different color shapes and try to find this moment when it all gels together like a symphony. The first image in this group is the painting where it is at the moment I am writing. Soon it will be different. But the difference will go where?
The three images following are trials of different color themes, all applied with a Photoshop paint bucket, not an actual brush. Now I must decide what color composition "works" in the painting, an elusive goal but always the goal.
