Inspired by the Color Red

'Inspired by Red' 8x10 pastel

This painting is an example of what happens when the painting takes on a life of it's own. You know how you hear it said to 'listen to your painting'? Sometimes it seems like your paintings don't talk to you but when you see things develop that you might not have intended it is nice to be able to go with it and see what happens. I started this painting as a demo of clouds for a private student. It originally had beach/dunes and sea oats in the foreground. When my student painted the same scene she underpainted the sand area with red. I loved the red and imagined how it could be a field of poppies rather than dunes....so I brushed out my dunes, added red and turned the sand into a poppy field! My student left hers as dunes and did a wonderful job!