Weaving Colour

Mexican Handicraft
30 x 30

A painting is a bit like a weaving: the same colours appear and reappear across the surface, creating a pattern and a unified effect.  If you have a red object and a green object on the canvas, they should always contain bits of each other's color within them or risk appearing disconnected like a poorly-Photoshopped image.
In this still life of some handicrafts that I bought in Mexico after the retreat last month, the earthy green stood out as a dominant color note, and the red-breasted, ceramic bird was my focal point.  Green, the compliment of red, helped me to set off the bird as the most important object.  I used a variety of greens throughout the painting: sometimes making a yellowish green, other times adding more blue or a touch of red.
In fact, every color in this set up is repeated somewhere else.  Like the threads of the small weaving within the painting, they lock the objects firmly together.
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