Color vibration

A river in winter, Maine
Hers a painting I made this winter up in Maine. Snow is not white! Its is often prismatic. I usually paint snow by putting down a mixture of warm color and white and then break a cool color in white over that. I am referring to the sunlit portions of course. Sometimes the light color is a mixture of cadmium yellow and cadmium red light and a whole lot of white. Sometimes I use cobalt violet and that white. The cool note into that is usually a mixture of ultramarine, Quinacridone and white. The two different notes must not be too mixed together or it won't work. The eyes sees the separate color notes and their complexity gives believability. A flat tone like a house painters' would instantly make that area go flat.

IN AN IMPRESSIONIST PAINTING THE COLOR IS MADE TO "VIBRATE" BY THE JUXTAPOSITION OF DIFFERING NOTES USUALLY OF THE SAME VALUE.

If you were to take a ring off your finger and slide it around the surface of this painting there would always be multiple notes of color within it. I will show some closeups and discuss this further in my next post.