Red Berries

In my watercolor class I have been working on painting green leaves and have been glazing greens and reds. It is alot of fun and hopefully it will come out good enough to post.

It made me remember the story of my Red Berries painting. About twelve years ago I painted this painting. My next door neighbor at the time was also an artist. His wife fell in love with the Red Berries. So we traded paintings and I received a painting of a waterfall. For many years I missed my Red Berries.

Often it is so hard to let go of my art work. Especially recent paintings. Once I did a drawing in colored pencils of Autumn Leaves and I framed it and hung it in a show that weekend. A woman came by and fell in love with it and bought it. I felt like saying "No you cannot have it, it is too soon for me to let it go." But I did believe that she would take care of it so I let her purchase it.

So I repainted the Red Berries and here they are. They are a little more detailed than the original.

I love the use of complementary colors, especially red and green. When you use them next to each other they make the other one appear brighter, more intense. But if you mix them together they dull the other one down.
For example if you've painted a field of poppies and the ones in the background are just as bright and the ones in the foreground, the best thing to do is add a little green to those poppies that you need to tone down.

In watercolors you can mix the greatest neutral colors with your complementary colors. (These are the colors oppostie from each other on the color wheel.) The main compliments are red and green, blue and orange and yellow and purple. Play with them, you will enjoy it.