Elephant Painting

I just started this new painting to enter into the Spring Salon here in Utah. It is a continuation of the "Journey" series, and has some cool twists which are not yet represented in this underpainting. 

And yes the elephant's legs are really long, that is on purpose. I love the elephants in Salvador Dali's elephant paintings which have really long legs (much longer than these) but I didn't want to exaggerate it as much for this painting because I am trying to teach a point with the imagery. I won't go into it here, you will just have to watch as it develops.

Imagination's Pathway

Ok, so I woke up at 3:00 in the morning last Sunday and couldn't sleep so I decided to come down to my studio and paint.

I had seen a landscape painting while browsing through online artist portfolios, and decided I would like to create a similar painting just to learn the use of color. The painting was quite loose and as I am on an "experiment with loose painting kick" I decided to try it, adding of course my own touches. I had this odd shaped strip of hardboard so I adapted the portion of the painting I most liked to fit the board.

I think the painting turned out rather successfully and it was a great learning experience as I copied the painting, putting together colors I normally would not have. I am learning that in order to make color vibrate and "sing" on canvas it is important to add color you normally wouldn't think to ad. Certain colors "vibrate" when placed next to each other, and this can create the effect of life and depth in a painting when simply using a color and it's tint and shade makes a painting look dull and lifeless.