Je ne sais quoi

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I found some pictures I had taken late last year at Rancho San Antonio Park - the trails were backlit, and it seemed to be early morning winter light. To capture a building or a "thing" is so much easier! The shapes I saw in these landscapes looked easy enough, but to capture that light, color, and all the values as they transformed gently but surely into other values - misty somewhere, bright somewhere, fading somewhere, in silhouette elsewhere - was much harder than the shapes implied.
Here is my first attempt - postcard-sized as I really wasn't feeling brave - and all the original pictures I took. The pictures are so stunning - I can't believe I was there.
The second painting is done with a complementary palette: the first layer is golds, oranges, and red-oranges. The second layer is blues and blue-greens; the third layer is darks - neutrals made with oranges and blues.








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