Blog
Going Up Channel – Painting of the Week
Bridging the Color
The crisp fall air of Indian summer is both refreshing and precious. The changing leaves leave us breathless as we hold on to those last warm days of the season. “Going Up Channel”, a newly completed commissioned piece, captures that fleeting magic. Returning to my initial notes for this vertical-format painting, my directions were clear: paint fall trees, dominant blues, intense colors, sailboats, and a motorboat.
In my work, I frequently emphasize analogous colors—those that sit side by side on the color wheel. For this piece, the palette is three-quarters cool and one-quarter warm, relying on blue and orange as complementary accents to make each other pop while keeping the tones balanced. To maintain vibrancy, I carefully layered these neighboring hues. Notice how the rocky shore on the right is a blend of soft yellows and greens, using blue to transition into violet, and blue mixed with orange to bridge toward rich reds.
