Over the last few days I’ve been using my hot bubble gum pink gessoed manila dividers for my tonalist landscape project. You may be wondering, “How’s that working out?”

Well, it’s been interesting. Now and then it’s proved a bit challenging, and overall I think it’s led to a better understanding of how I want to use colors in my landscape paintings. Generally, I’ve always been a cool color painter. My personal favorites are blues and greens with occasional touches of a cool-based violet. I prefer cool grays to warm. Even with yellow — my new favorite color for 2020 — I prefer a cool lemon yellow for my landscape painting.

So, needless to say, having not simply a warm but a downright hot color covering my little index cards took me aback when I first when I went to my easel to do the next five paintings (16 through…