Prismatic Village

13 in x 21 in,

5/25

A colleague in clinic asked me to paint a picture that would complement a painting she had of a narrow street in what looked like an old European village, surrounded by colorful townhouse-type dwellings. Her painting looked like it came right from Cinqueterra or somewhere vibrant like that. She was drawn to my prism paintings, and asked for a vertical piece but to make the bottom of the painting darker than the top, to reference the shadowing of her original painting. I decided to lay down an extended prism (purples, blues, aquas, greens, yellows, oranges, reds and magentas in that order). For each sliver, I added a touch of Mars black to the color and applied that to the bottom, blending up without masking, and some Titanium white to the color for the top, blending that down. The effect was interesting, for each sliver of the prism actually had three distinct colors in it, all related to the same base color. I finished the piece by adding segments of bright metallic gold to reference the windows of the original painting, which I think gave the piece interest.