My Bedroom In Tuscany

This is a painting of one of the bedrooms from a workshop I taught in Tuscany Italy. My first attraction was how the sunlight flooded through the window and how the lamps caused such interesting cast shadows on the walls. Lemon yellow and yellow ochre were used for the walls and I added violet to the mixture for the cast shadows. It is the artist's job to make changes to better represent what they see and I used the same colors for the electric heater, lamps, and shutters to simplify the painting and hold the different elements together. Notice how the large wooden posts in the headboard lead you back into the painting and are then repeated in the shape of the standing lamp. The white bedding reflects the other colors in the room and the folds lead the eye back toward the window and the original light source. Designing different ways to direct the viewer's eye is an an interesting challenge and adding the open book with its cast shadow stops the eye momentarily from racing through the painting and out the open window. Happy Painting! Dennis Pendleton