Deep Sunset

Sometimes a painting just scares me. I mean, I get to a certain point and then I'm afraid to go any further with it for fear of messing it up. And it's not that it's finished--- far from it; I just can't figure out how to proceed.

So, Deep Sunset has been hanging on a wall of the studio, mocking me. I've been able to make progress on everything below the horizon for several weeks, but it's the sky that has had me hung up. The drawing of the cloud layers is tricky; in some areas they're on a completely different angle from adjacent areas. And the color has been very hard to figure out, going too orange in spots and not the crazy coral-pink-magenta-fuchsia that I see in the sky.

But today I just went for it. It still needs a layer of blue-violet to separate some forms, but it's going to be okay.

Deep Sunset, © 2015

Oh, and I worked on four other paintings as well, none of them as garish as this one. Though the color is more toned done in real life.