Pescallo cafe complete

We have had a bout of sickness at our house (first me, then my daughter) but I finally had a chance to get back to my Pescallo painting over the holiday weekend. Let's wrap this up! Picking up from my last installment, I am ready to paint in the flowers. Bougainvillea spills over the arbor with mixtures of alizarin crimson, permanent rose and a touch of cadmium red to warm things up. Normally I would block those colors in sooner but I was still trying to decide about the placement of that arbor structure and reds are such high staining colors that I didn't want to put them in until I had the composition pretty well established. Now I guess I am committed! ;)

Geraniums in shades of red fill out the planters using the same colors as the bougainvillea (but in much different ratios).  I also flesh out the columns on the terrace and I am nearly done with the pier.

Now it's time to move down to finish the foreground water and reflections. There is a lot of movement in this water, and with much of this water in semi-shadow, reflections are subtle and broken by waves rather than the strong, mirror-like reflections seen in still water. For the darkest shades I mix Ultramarine and Gold Ochre, warmed or cooled by touches of Cadmium Orange or Sevres blue as the situation allows. Water highlights are deeper shades of the sky color.

My finale is to include the rest of my vertical lines- the mast on the boat and the railing along the pier. These verticals act as a strong counter-balance to the horizontals of the mountains, boat and pier. I think the railing also serves to further push the background more firmly in the distance.

"Alfresco in Pescallo" Oil on Linen, 24x30" ©Jennifer Young

This piece was a challenge to me, largely because of all of the interruptions I had, which caused the painting to set up quite a bit more in between sessions. I much prefer painting wet-into-wet, to avoid the extra work of opening the painting back up and scraping the dry paint down off of my palette. But sometimes it just can't be helped. In any event, I hope you like the final piece!

No babysitting this week, so there will be lots of trips to playgrounds and possibly the zoo, and I likely won't have much in the way of new work to post until after my daughter is back in preschool on the 9th.