Rhapsody in Blue

I admire paintings where the artist is able to play with reality and yet still convey the subject clearly. I decided last year to try this for myself. I find it very difficult. I start with a flamboyant idea and then end up finding myself filling in fine details.

The subject I chose was (still is) my husband. It would be un understatement to say that he spends a lot of time at his computer. The effect I was going for was to have the computer screen provide the light and to add to the sense of unreality by sticking with the color blue. For contrast I included his peach-colored mouse – not only an incongruous color for a man to have as a mouse but I had thought that it was funny to think of an apple (his laptop) and a peach (his mouse). As you will see, I found it impossible to stick with blue and added red to the shirts and to the books in the background. I painted this in acrylic on a prepared canvas. You can see the progression below and the final painting. My husband liked it well enough that it is allowed to hang in his study.

I found as I progressed along that I found the shelves and books slow-going & tedious. I would have liked them to be less prominent – fading into the background so-to-speak but I couldn’t figgure out how to do this. I also wanted the air behind the figure to look as if it faded into darkness – I couldn’t figure that out either. After a while I decided to stop messing with it.

The finished painting is below. I hope you like it.