SAME IMAGE, DIFFERENT APPROACHES, DIFFERENT TRIAD

Here are the two bozzettos I painted today while working on the major painting project. The difference in feeling is amazing to me and a very valuable lesson. I feel very free to experiment, explore and just paint loosely, with abandon on these little bozzettos. The commissioned piece, I feel inhibited and am working much tighter. Consequently, I am not enjoying it very much and want to spend my time with the small pieces. I think I shall not take on this kind of work again. I don't need to and it sidetracks me from my true purpose.

I am working with the same photo but approaching it stylistically, from many different directions. I have altered the photo many different ways, each suggesting a unique paint application. I also decided to retire a color once I had used it in a triad. Last night I pulled 3 color sets and paper clipped them together until I had used up all the colors. When I complete this set of colors, I will put everything back in the pot and start over again and pull the sets all at once.

The first painting uses close to a traditional triad: Cobalt, Indian Red and Hansa Deep ( I actually got a blue, red and yellow!!!!)
I thought I would get some version of purple but Cobalt and Indian Red make an umber color when mixed. My photo "dude" has dreadlocks so I am experimenting trying different ideas to depict this look. Very tricky, indeed. I also floated some white into this image. Overall, I think it is a tad overworked but a color combination I would use again.

The next painting was done without drawing it on the paper first. It is all about shapes. I just painted the shapes, each value at a time and waited for it to dry so the edges wouldn't bleed. Couldn't believe I got a monochromatic color scheme: Ultramarine Blue, Thalo blue and Thalo Green. I am not a shape painter, per se, and I am not a monochromatic painter so this was a real challenge. I wanted to see the difference in the two blues visually on the paper. The liquid Hydrus colors don't have the granulating quality as tube colors do. The difference in hue between thalo blue and ultramarine in this line is not very great. Much bigger difference in traditional watercolors. I wasn't interested in mixtures on this one so I used strait colors at different strengths. When it was done, I decided to see how a complimentary color as an accent would look. Just couldn't stand to leave all that blue and green alone. Took a scarlet watercolor crayon and created some edges, then a light acid green. I think it was probably better before I messed with it. Kind of looks like Bert Lahr as the Cowardly Lion in the Wizard of Oz. Well, the whole idea of making bozzettos is to experiment so no big loss. Would like a little feed back on this one. Let me know what you think of the red accent line...yeah or nay?