In October, I had the itch to paint some chairs again, but to add a twist to the composition. Previously, most of my designs were with jungle plants, but I decided enough of the greenery! Although I do find myself doing plant life frequently, it is good to do something totally different. In this case, I used what is right in front of me. Like most artists, I have a wide variety of paintbrushes. The challenge was designing an interesting composition.

For some reason, I always begin by painting the positive shapes of the chairs using the wet-in-wet technique. My intention was to limit the palette and decide which colors would be best. I recently acquired some new pigments and wanted to try them out. These were the Jack Richeson’s thalo blue, pyrrole red, ultramarine violet and bismuth yellow. They are very nice! I have not found an undesirable pigment yet!

I had not planned the background until the last minute, which is a big no-no, but it works for me. It usually occurs to me what to do with it during the process of painting; I find it better to think about it for a while before going in too early and messing up the whole design.

Exhibited in Rockies Western National 2014