From the beginning, this abstract painting reminded me of a coastal shoreline, possibly a foggy bay area. [image error] Usually I avoid attaching any sort of realism to the abstract images that appear, because I tend to start leaning toward that hint of realism. This time, I held off working on the painting at all, moving instead to the other two canvases in this Liquitex Muted Violet palette. Eventually, I had to decide what to do next, and the shoreline image continued to tug at me, so I went with it.

 [image error] [image error]  But where to go from here? I could picture ships docked at what appear to be piers – yet I wanted to pull it back to abstract. One move that often works for me in this situation is to finish with a flurry of gestural strokes that I call graffiti. Since the painting was quite low key, I added white. [image error] Okay, that brightened it, yetthe stark white was too much, so I toned it down with a medley of colors from the palette. [image error] Better, but a few white highlights now were needed. In my Muted Violet trio, here’s how “Even a Foggy Workday Can Be Fun” stacks up against its two sisters, “All Squared Up” and “Where Clouds Go to Rest”… [image error] [image error] [image error]

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