"MIDNIGHT, HUNAN PROVINCE, CHINA"
30 X 40" acrylic on canvas

Sometimes a painting is born smoothly and easily, evolving on the canvas without a care in the world, and sometimes a painting is born kicking and screaming, reluctant to come out of the womb until the artist has begged and pleaded with it.

This painting was a difficult delivery.  After having painted the first version, I moved onto this larger canvas and sketched it loosely.  The colors from the first painting did not work on this larger canvas.  Since I used loose dark washes to block it in
the result was cark and foreboding, not at all what I wanted.
I wanted color, and excitement.
The painting languished on the easel for a few weeks, while I studied it in passing every day.  Sometimes I added a few strokes, an outline or two, or a complete rework of a section, but it was the COLOR that wasn't working.
I told a friend that when I didn't care about it anymore, the solution would come to me.
And so it did.
I eliminated all "blue and brown" mixtures that I had used for black, and went back to my tried and true Primary color scheme, while using permanent magenta rather than the bright Cadmium Red.
I left some Cad Red here and there and it pops off the canvas, like I wanted, but the magenta-blue-yellow rainbow pulls the viewer into the painting with a welcome feeling.
​I like it now, obviously enough to post it here.

"MIDNIGHT, HUNAN PROVINCE, CHINA"
16 x 20" acrylic on canvas
This is the first of two Hunan paintings I'll post. 
This worked well for me, in an abstract-expressionist-y way.  It's very true to the original concept and sketches, and pops with the design and high contrast values.
​It makes me feel that I am actually there in a noisy garishly-lit back alley of Fenghuan.  I'm very happy with this painting.  
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