Saturday, November 8, 2014

Hermitage Cabin

Hermitage Cabin, 8x10" oil plein air, ©Diane Mannion

Painting Light

Second painting from last Thursday at the Hermitage, Manasota Key.  The subject is light!  

This was painted on top of another wipeout.  What caught my eye at first was the small patch of light on the right side between the cabin and palm tree.  Built the rest of the painting around that patch.  

The warm light on the near side hit the closet palm tree casting a strong shadow.  Somehow, this painting came together on it's own.  My thumbnail didn't even include the closest palm tree.

... added a few red flowers with my artistic license.  Not often that I get two paintings in one day that I'm happy with.

A gentleman peeking over my shoulder asked if I would be painting the white cabin white

I had him look at an artist who was standing in the sun.  "Her shirt is white also.  Now look at the cabin again... it's not the same color of white." 

"Ah," he said.  "I see." 

"White is actually made up with different shades of red, yellow, and blue.  That artist's white shirt has a lot of yellow in it.  The cabin has more blue."

I think that explanation scared him away...


2 comments:

Susan said...

I see so much balance in the painting...light, shape, color (even a balance of color to non-color). The only imbalance I see is the life of the hermit who supposedly lived here... but maybe he/she had good reason to choose isolation.

Diane Mannion said...

Susan, a hermit never lived here! The name is based on a famous artist's retreat, in Russia, I think. It's now a place where artists from around the world can pretend to be hermits and get some work done. Will do some research later and confirm. Thanks for your comment!