Another blue background!

My sister, Joanne Hanson, recently took a painting workshop from Jill Carver, one of the very best plein air painters.  Jill mentioned that her secret weapon is pthalo green.  I agree - mine too - but also pthalo blue.  Both pthalo colors can kill a painting if not used very sparingly.  I use pthalo green (the only green on my palette) not to mix a green but to cool a color.  Sometimes if I'm having trouble getting just the right color, a tiny dot of pthalo green will give me exactly just the color I'm looking for.  On the other hand, I use pthalo blue to add pizazz to a blue or mauve mixture.   In my humble opinion, there are no other colors that you can substitute for the pthalos.  So the pizazz in the blue background of this piece is from pthalo blue - but just a tiny bit of it mixed in with French ultramarine and a few other colors.

As I've mentioned before, I grew up on a poultry farm in New Zealand so I feel highly qualified to paint chickens - or chooks as they're called in New Zealand.   The photo has glare on it because of the shiny wet paint.  When it's dry, I'll scan it and replace this photo with a better image.

 Adele Earnshaw - Chicken