Deconstructing Colors

I've been wanting to follow up on my discussion about color from the last post. I realize that what I find so interesting about Monet's work is that color is deconstructed and that gives his work life. I learn so much when I look up close at his original paintings. He had such an incredible sensitivity to color and really knew how to use it.

I like the idea of painting a green tree, but not using any green. Instead I might use blue, purple, yellow, black, etc... Then, I would paint a blue sky without blue. If you paint the tree's leaves, using only green paint and a blue sky, using only blue paint, I think the resulting images will often feel flat.

Leaves

2008

2008

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2007

I love to paint leaves. I don't paint a lot of realistic images--I'm usually just not interested in rendering things. I prefer painting abstractly because it gives me more leeway to experiment with color. I do like looking closely at autumn leaves, however: they're all so different and painting them is like painting portraits. Their color patterns are fascinating to me and I'm often surprised by the colors that I notice. For example, I really enjoyed painting the purple leaf, above (with the orange/red background). This leaf was pretty much dead and had to be handled very carefully because it could easily get crunched. Who would know that it could have purple and blue in it? I like looking closely at paintings by Monet for the same reason: he found beautiful color combinations in haystacks that you could not imagine if you were to just think about haystacks.