Salon challenge #5 - Happy Together

Barbara had Patrick's painting ...

Patrick's fauvist-style plein air painting below 

was Barbara's to work on along with the songs from Patrick's birth year.

She turned this painting upside-down. 

And she kindly sent me her progress shots:

Happy Together     12 x 12 inches     oil over acrylic on canvas

The song that hit the "right note" for the painting is:

Happy Together

by The Turtles

Barbara is a photographer with a good eye for great photos. She 

has spent many hours watching birds during migration and, well, all year long.

At one point during the summer she found this pair of Wood Duck (Aix sponsa).

... and she knows how to handle a paint brush as well. 

Here are some words from Barbara 

about her painting process for this challenge. 

 "I felt the emotion of knowing these two ducks... and it was the way they looked at me and carried their heads that was the most important to get right.   And saving a red spot for his eye, because I knew I would not have a source of bright red later... Alizarin would not do.  And deciding to paint them backlit because the palette could not produce their magnificence in light.  This was a benefit of the challenge (having a limited palette), because it is so tempting to paint their brilliance and it forced me to back off on that distraction.  I think it focuses more on them as individuals ... "

We all thought this painting turned out exceptionally well!

We decided this was a challenge that was not only right-brained (creative); 

we had to left-brain it (listen and think), too.

(I think this whole thing may be puzzling to some, 

and I have tried to explain simply the process we went through for this project. 

But let me know if you are confused about our challenge #5

that I began posting about on July 29.)

On to Challenge #6! 

I will be away for a good 10 days 

to a painting workshop and visiting friends.

Keep painting! and thank you so much for checking in.

Salon Challenge #5 - Medley

So, Patrick had Timi's portrait,
"Crazy Aunt Lorraine"

which is a marvelous portrait already.

While revealing his version of the painting,

he played us a medley of the top ten songs 

from Timi's birth year.

The one that ... *ZAP* ... struck him as the

song of inspiration for what he was to do,

was

Get Together 

by The Youngbloods 

Title to be determined      12 x 12   oil on canvas

... with the lyrics:

🎶Come on people now
Smile on your brother
Everybody get together
Try to love one another
Right now 🎶

Patrick is continuing to work on this painting 

and I will update this post when he finishes.

This was a very meaningful "reverberation/regeneration" 

of an already intriguing painting! 

I understand why he essentially added to the painting, 

rather than paint over a very

striking image.  It works so well with this song.

Next post will be the last of our challenge #5 paintings. 

We are already on to thinking about our Salon Challenge #6.

(Remember you have to say salon, like the Google Translate lady says it.)

Thank you for following along

and

Happy Painting!

Salon Challenge #5 - Reverb

As I mentioned last post, our salon group decided to do a limited palette again. 

We each brought two colors and picked these 4 out of a hat (l to r):

Yellow Ochre

Viridian (green)

Alizarin Crimson

Cerulean (blue)

plus

White

This pic is our colors mixed with white. Lovely!

I was excited to do this challenge, 

but at the same time, it was pretty terrifying to have Barbara's painting

to mess up, or something ...

Here is her nice painting. Pretty colors too!

The list of songs from her year of birth (I liked 6 of the top ten):

#1 Little Things Mean a Lot - Kitty Kalen

2 Wanted - Perry Como

3 Hey There - Rosemary Clooney

4 Shaboom - Crew Cuts

5 Make Love to Me - Jo Stafford

 6 Oh! My Papa! - Eddie Fisher

7 I Get So Lonely - Four Knights

8 Three Coins in a Fountain - 4 Aces

9 Secret Love - Doris Day

10  Hernando's Hideaway - Archie Bleyer

And I played them and played them, while I gazed at this painting. 

None of the songs made me think of anything particular, 

but I finally decided ...

To paint a landscape! 

I turned him face down ...

... and began to paint - sort of imagining a waterway 

going between mountains.

As we painted on our friend's painting, 

we were invited to 

"let some parts of the original painting remain" and 

"renovate, recuperate, regenerate, retaliate, or reverberate" the other painting!

This is where the name for our challenge was born - Reverb

As I began putting the water in,

... it hit me.

I turned the painting again and 

made a kind of Ophelia! That link tells you a bit 

about the famous painting by Millais,

based on Ophelia from Hamlet. 

Note this from Wikipedia: 

"The scene is described in Act IV, Scene VII of Hamlet in a speech by Queen Gertrude.^[1]"

All it needed were some flowers, 

turn him into a girl, 

water around face just before she sinks ... and woe ... drowns

and - voilà!

Secret Love - (tentative title)     oil on Masonite  12 x 15 inches

I did sign it, but I still might add something else I have been thinking about, and I will update this blog post if I do it.

Next post will explain Patrick's painting. He has a portrait of Timi's Aunt Lorraine.

Thank you so much for checking in - Happy Painting!