Reflections to the Nth

In a recent painting class, Jody Regan challenged us to explore reflections.   What happens to lines, colors and light when reflected by a mirror, water or some other surface with glass type properties.   I just happen to be working on several cranberry bog paintings, all of which contain water of some sort.    What I learned from the class exercise is that water reflections are a bit more forgiving than a mirror and shiny object.  

I selected a silver creamer and a flashy striped fabric.   As if the reflections on the creamer weren't challenging enough, I hiked up the difficulty by setting the creamer on a square mirror.    So now, the creamer reflected the stripes, and the mirror reflected the creamer with the reflected stripes. Picture it? 

One other challenge was that this fabric had a myriad of multicolored stripes.  I didn't want to paint every stripe for sure.  I designed a new fabric in the painting - which then had to be reflected correctly in the silver.

Remember yesterday's hommage to subtlety?  Subtle this is not.  It's fun to blast out straight tube color once in a while, especially after the grey painting day yesterday.

I have a new technique for optical blending.   I think I invented it, but it's probably been around for centuries.  Instead of placing colors next to each other with a brush (that the viewer's eye will mix), I put narrow skim-coat stripes of the blending colors on my palette, then scrape up perpendicularly with a palette knife, then draw the strips of color out with one slow and steady stroke.  That's how I did my red-yellow-red stripes (after having done it the hard way first).   It does skip in places, but I like the painterly effect that has.   I think the fact that the creamer is not so painterly, but more realistic is a style I like.         I learned quite a bit about reflections in the last couple of weeks.  I  learned that a silver creamer is not silver.  It's a muted version of every color around it with a touch of white at the end for the illusion of shine.                                                                           

Noone is going to want to hang this in their house being as garish as it is.   That's okay.  I really like it for what it is. 

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Thank you to my teacher, Jody Regan for sending me this picture. She took it at the beginning of class.  It is my brush drawing of this painting.  I was recycling an old canvas that had been a color exercise.