Color-aid paper collages

Naples Yellow. gouache on paper 9 x 13".

My process here is to paint it as I go. I mixed up a few colors, but finding the shapes and shape relationships is done intutively. I like using colors close in value, like the purple and the gray, because you get an interesting and soft spatial change.

I like the big, sweeping purple areas. They come from lines but end up reaching themselves into shapes or areas. There are several areas or groups of color arrangements I really like. Especially the bottom right corner. It does seem like a face. The color Naples Yellow is mixed into all the colors seen  here. It's a soft, beige-type yellow.The painting has indistinct spatial areas; it seems to have some spatial structure, although it is vague. It does have smaller forms at the top which lend a feeling of recceding objects. Lastly, the Naples Yellow is drybrushed over some larger shapes, which imply a texture. On the left you see a circlular form which I liked so much I've done 3 or 4 paintings that feature it, Here's one: Aperture, shown below:

I think there are more motifs in the first painting I could use to start another!

Big White

Big White. goauche on paper. 7.5 x 8.5" 2013

Although it is samll in size, this little gouache packs a big punch idea-wise. Several interesting pictorial cues are at work here; the orange line bisecting the big white shape becomes a "tree" or 3D form at the bottom, casting a shadow back onto the white. The white is simply the white of the page. So the white shape seems  to be setting back far enough for the shadow to function. The tinted version of the orange and green occur in the painting, but they confuse any spatial reading. On the right it seems to receed into space, yet at the top they advance. The bright orange line surafces in 3 places, each changing the reading of the image. 

Originally, this was half of a larger painting. Cropping can be such a versatile tool.