"Monkeying Around"

"Monkeying Around", Oil painting, 20" x 16"

This is a painting of my 8-year old Skyler on the monkey bars in the playground in Portola Valley (where we live). He's been climbing on monkey bars since pre-school, and loves them. It's impressive to watch children on the bars and how much they improve each time. If only I could do them so well!

For my 'People in Action' series, I wanted to paint Skyler doing monkey bars. I snapped many photos over many months before I got just the right photo to inspire this painting.

You may know this already, but if you don't, copying a great photo does not make a great painting. Many many adjustments are required! In addition to judicious cropping, changes often have to be made to the colors, background, and more. In this case, the monkey bars in the playground are green. And I painted the bars green, only to realize that it made the painting out of balance - the top had mostly greens and the bottom had mostly reds. It looked terrible. Then I re-painted the bars red and achieved the balance I wanted. I made other changes too . . . simplified the background, changed the color of this clothes, and more.

Any comments?

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