6×8″, acrylic on sealed, primed hardboard
SOLD! Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com to inquire about a similar painting.

I once knew a wonderful painter named Mike Pacitti, who passed away a few years ago. He used a few different colors to underpaint with. One of them was called Burnt Carmine, made by Rembrandt. I remember it as a strong carmine/crimson color mixed with black. Even with black in the mix, I was surprised by how strong the color was when I saw Mike use it, and yet his paintings were filled with beautiful subtleties.

I decided to try something like that while waiting for clouds to break along the Hudson River in Cold Spring. I mixed Quinacridone Magenta half and half with Carbon Black, and used that to do the underpainting for this little plein air. It was much stronger than the colors I normally use to lay out my composition and values. No matter what you use to paint over it, the magenta seems to work its way through. Part of me thinks it still comes through too much. Another part of me thinks I’m just not used to it, and that I kind of like the effect.

What do you think? (Please click “comments” at the bottom of this post to let me know rather than emailing, because I’m getting swamped! 😉 )

Posted by Jamie on Monday, September 15th, 2008 at 7:31 pm.