The Color Challenge

Dear All,

Before we leave the subject of still-life, I have to show you this. This is of some Chinese bronzes I inherited from my grandparents who went to China in 1920 as missionaries. In fact, my mother was born there. They returned from four years there with, among other things, a two year old child and these items, an incense burner, two vases and the candlesticks. I have a photo of these things in their house in China.

But the history of these items is not why I show you this painting. See how muted the colors are? Well, that's because this was an exercise in using a very very limited palette. I used four tubes of paint. White, black, yellow ochre and cadmium red light. That's it. Think you see blue in there? You do. It's what happens when Ivory Black is mixed with Titanium White. It goes blue. But that is only a relative thing. If you were to mix those colors on a neutral palette, it would look gray. But in this painting, with these other muted colors as background, it looks blue. Neat huh?

OK, this was just an exercise piece, but I thought the result was interesting from a skills point of view. Hope you do too.
Jay