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Hi, Cindy. Thank you for your kind words. I will take some close ups of portraits that I am currently working on and post them in the near future.
As far as the subtlety of color goes, it is an important tool in getting color to work in a painting. By keeping your colors somewhat subdued, or slightly grayed down, you reserve more of your pure colors in case you need them later in the painting. I have found that it is easier for me to start a painting a bit brighter and warmer in color and then gray it down as I go along by adding complimentary colors. It seems to be easier to cool a color down with its compliment then to try and work in color into a grayed area. Color relationships are similar to value relationships, in that a color appears more brilliant or more subdued according to the other colors that are on your canvas. You can key your painting higher in color (brighter, more brilliant color) or lower in color (grayer, subdued colors) in much the same way that you would key a painting higher or lower in value. Just because you have a wide spectrum of colors to work with doesn't mean that you have to use all of them in your painting in order to convey what you are trying to say. The same goes for values. You do not have to use every value from black to white in every painting. If you compare this to music you could think of it this way: You don't need to use every note on the scale in order to write a song. Some of the most memorable songs are the simple ones that we find ourselves humming throughout the day. I hope that this will be of some use to you. Take care.
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