During the last few weeks, I've read most of the book I was talking about, Alla Prima. I was very impatient to go out and try out some of the new discoveries I've found. Especially on color temperatures and ways of identifying colors with accuracy. I was excited to paint in Shanghai, new sceneries & the beautiful light of autumn. It was quite disappointing in fact. I find it very very hard these days to paint, because I have a lot of insight on what I was doing wrong, but also because now I'm more sensitive and aware of many aspect of painting (well i guess). I will assume that the current setback is actually a good thing, trying to swallow huge chunk of informations, while my clumsy right brain is trying to make sense out of it.
One of the biggest misconception I had about painting was... "Get the value right, and it will look fine!" Wrong!!! Well it will look ok, but not great, You also need to get your temperature contrast right, if you want your work to stand out. (unless you work in monochromatic, but this is not my lane).
This little "revolution" brought me back to the selection of colors I was using and even on their organization on my palette. Even thinking of designing my own palette. I used to skip the color theory chapter in every book I was reading. Big Mistake, I will practice at least twice a week to paint a color wheel, with variation in saturation and brightness. Using 3 primary colors, with a warm and cool version of each. Also I will restraint my outdoor paintings to 5x7 inches painting, to really focus on color identification and technical mixing.
