Challenge 5

It isn't the composition or the application I don't think Sharon, it's the colours. There's a 'dullness' to the washes, I bet if you tried exactly the same painting again but with a different palette it would change the whole feel of it. Interesting experiment this two colour challenge.

You come up with these colour schemes and straight away I want to try them out for myself! I hardly ever use green from the tube and actually dislike sap green but those cherries are a super colour aren't they! I think it would have worked better with more background colour? what about darkening the background leaving white around all the fruit? The composition is good. Very interesting to see and thanks for showing us.

Thanks for your advice ladies. I think I'll try your suggestion Louise, see what happens. Normally I don't use any ready made greens either, but when you have a self-inflicted limitation of just two colours, its the only option. I'll stop my experiments for the time being, as the strain on my eyes is getting worse. Have glasses again, will paint.

I've just tried out these two colours and failed miserably. All credit to you for producing this!!

Great use of those two colours. I think you chose exactly the right subject and composition to achieve an excellent result.

Thanks Thea. I did follow up on Louise's suggestion, and it improved somewhat, bringing the colour of the grapes forward and calming down those cherries a bit. The lesson I learned from this, apart from composition, is that both colours are fine as they are, but mixed together they lose their zing and become very flat and dull as Fiona says.

It isn't only the palette that's limited !