Saturday, October 22, 2011

Cliff at Dorgali Nuoro


This is for October 2011 Virtual Paintout, Sardinia Italy challenge. It's oil on 12x16 canvas panel.

Sardinia is a beautiful place from traveling virtually via Google Maps. This reference photo caught my eyes (ref) because of its contrast between light and shadow, and it also reminded me of some of Monet's cliff paintings, such as his Cliffs at Etretat and Cliff near Fecamp. I really admired Monet's use of color, so brilliant, and all the colors work so perfectly together. So I decided I would give this photo a try, using (well, at least my attempt at) Monet like style and color for this particular scene.

The sunny portions were based on cadmium yellow and orange, while the shadow portion is a combination of ultramarine violet, cobalt, violet grey. There were many other colors in there, such as yellow orchre, sap green, terra rosa, etc. At the end I painted in a sail boat in the far distance to give more interest on the right hand side of the canvas and also some sense of scale to the cliff.

2 comments:

  1. Visiting your blog from Virtual Paintout. My first thought on seeing your painting was that it was very impressionistic, like something Monet might have done. Then I read your blog entry! You have certainly achieved what you set out to do. It's just lovely. The light and colour make my heart sing.

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  2. Really nice Rebecca! especially the bright spots within the shadows, but still looking like a shadow....and the water that is in the shadow of the cliff ....and the sailboat :)

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