Color scheme - instinctively

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I am often intimidated by going on my own to do plein air. I like the structure and the ensconced feeling from the people in the Tuesday and Thursday plein air groups. This morning, I skipped the very far drive to Maison du Lac in Los Gatos [plein air with the group], and also skipped Bolly X! I made my own goal - to do plein air painting at the Los Altos History Museum. I braved it, and went on my own.
Something about this space takes me back to the mid 1980s - to my grandmother's farmhouse in Punjab. The quiet, rural feel, the tractor, the lazy shadows - a beautiful part of my heart and childhood.
I did the little study first, and decided to play up the tractor colors - it really was a bright orange - and subdue everything else and make it a Payne's Gray value study. When I finished that, I realized I had found my color scheme! Payne's Gray, Cerulean, French Ultramarine, with a bit of yellow thrown in here and there for warmth - analogous and complementary to the tractor's true colors. I was so excited that the color scheme just came to me without any effort. I hope this experience repeats itself!
My son later remarked that the color scheme was interesting, and that he remembers the buildings being brown.



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