Newberry, San Onofre Blue, Blue, and Green, pastel
In discussing the psychological sense of life of 19th century Romanticism Ayn Rand wrote in The Romantic Manifesto: "Its art projected an overwhelming sense of intellectual freedom, of depth, i.e., concern with fundamental problems, of demanding standards, of inexhaustible originality, of unlimited possibilities, and, above all, of profound respect for man.” About four decades ago I made it a goal of mine to accomplish that. Not out of sheer will but because I knew I had the potential. This series of pastels developing the Newberry Color Theory, haha, I need to copyright it, is one of the results from exploring, exploiting, extrapolating everything about great visual art I could understand and do.
The color theory behind this work is blue atmosphere, blue distance, and yellow-green light. The cream-colored sand at the bottom got filtered through the blue, yellow-green, and warmer foreground which resulted in a earthy avocado greenish color. It felt delicious putting it in. As well is putting in a few touches of sparkling reflections in the lower left.
I was laughing and crying drawing/painting this. [There is a debate whether pastel on paper is drawing or painting.] But perhaps it was the opera playing with Jussi Bjorling and Victoria de los Angeles taking it to Puccini. Love them. Or maybe because creating feels like glorious opera to me.
Michael Newberry, Idyllwild, 11/26/2020, one AM.