Coastal Agates

Oil on canvas, 30"x30".  This time I decided to go after some colorful agates.  The decision to create a line of gray / white rocks actually happened as I was half-way through the painting. As colorful as it was, I felt it was starting to become too busy.  It just seemed like we needed some space to breath, and I thought back to a principle I learned a long time ago from one of my old art professors, Bruce Hixon Smith: the importance of gray in showing color. 

The principle is, if you want color to really pop, you need to neutralize the elements around it.  It's counter-intuitive, because we might think we need to make the colors more intense and add more color..  but that's not the right approach. Graying down the surrounding areas, or adding more gray into certain areas, will create the contrast you are looking for. You can even make subtle color tones feel more vibrant by neutralizing their surrounding elements. 

So I decided here to add some gray / white rocks to the composition, and I think it accomplished what I was looking to do.  There's a similar principle in graphic design: if everything is bold, nothing stands out.  Not everyone can be shouting in the room.. that's just a bunch of noise and it runs together. You need to isolate the shout.  By quieting other elements, even a small sound will feel louder.