Morning Drive from Shimla to Manali - Chapter 1

Last Summer we went on a family vacation to the beautiful state of Himachal Pradesh in North India which sits on the laps of the Himalayas.  The amazing drive from Shimla to Manali left me with impressions of winding, climbing roadways that curve around mountain to mountain, with the Beas river keeping us company for the entire drive.  The river flowed down with such great speed as our car sped up the hills towards Manali, making me want to drive up all the way from where it originated. The river seemed to crash over or wind around the rocks and boulders in its path to determinedly make its way down.  There was green everywhere you can see with deodar trees, apple and plum orchards.  It was such a calming sensation to my senses after the hustle and noise in the concrete jungle we live daily.

I hoped to capture some of those memories in this painting.  The Beas river had a color that was a muddy mix of white and very pale aquamarine due to the sediments it brought down with it.  The mountains were just all green, but depending on the time of the day and the light, the mountains went from a purple-gray to bright green.

I read about complementary color underpainting.  Some of the choices for underpainting were intuitive to me and I was instinctively applying those in my paintings - such as burnt sienna or deep reds and purples under greens to indicate shadows within leaves.  But for the most part I have been using the same colors for the under paint as the top layers, or used monochromatic layers just to capture the values (sort of like shading in pencil drawing). In theory I could see how an orange underpaint could make a blue sky glow.  So I was excited to give it a try in this painting.

I felt nervous to apply very strong layers of underpaint in completely opposite colors.  I usually use acrylic underpaint and then paint with oils over to avoid long drying time. So for the same reason I was worried about the under colors becoming too "permanent" when I paint over.  The painting looked like a photo negative!

It was really difficult to make so many decisions during underpainting - finding complementary colors to the final color, then matching the tint of final color to the complementary color.  It was hard to keep straight 2 sets of color schemes when starting out from a blank canvas.  One set of final colors and another set of their complements.  My brain was spinning around the color wheel :-)  How does one make so many decisions in the beginning?  Beyond an initial broad plan, I am used to making decisions along the way.  Characteristically, I got impatient with the number of confusing decisions so I rebelled and stopped thinking :-)

I kept the underpainting light as a compromise since I was convinced I was going about it all wrong.  In retrospect, I probably needn't have worried so much since I ended up with this below.  The orange sky and yellow mountains went away to my relief and I got into my comfort zone.  Now I can feel more and think less, or at least do both simultaneously!