ORIENTAL PAINTING - 6

Well, after my disconcerting discovery, I decided to forge onward.

Color was put into the hair ornaments of all of the geishas – and then it was on to the kimonos.

From my original (??) concept, I had planned on the main geisha to be wearing red and black with some gold.

The small geisha on the right was planned to be in similar colors to the flowers, so that she just sort of blended in.

I got out all of my oriental fabrics to help me decide on the colors for the center geisha, and decided on a vivid blue and teal with gold design work.

I tried out, or “auditioned”, my color choices on some Dura Lar. This is a thin acrylic sheet which I can lay over my painting and color on with my Caran d’Ache crayons. You can also use the thin acrylic sheet from an old poster if you (or your kids) have any. This lets you see how the color (or values) will look before you actually paint onto your picture. I’m sure most of you are aware of this, but some of you “newbies” might like this tip.

Just be aware that the colors might appear a bit gaudy since you can’t really blend colors nor soften the edges – but it can be a big help, especially if you only need help with your values.

My original geisha idea seemed to be working and I decided to keep the round fan in violet. However, I decided to change my left fan to red and put some red into the kimono of the left geisha.

I also changed the kimono on the left geisha to purple.

At this point I took a little break from the geishas to begin a watercolor - working at one table on the geishas and at another table on the watercolor!