Day one of a Prismatic Progression/Water workshop, a PP is the best tool a painter has to move the eye: front to back, left to right, top to bottom or the opposites. I use it as a subliminal subject. I want the water so pretty and effective that the other elements can be demoted in description and explanation.
A Prismatic Progression is a value and color pathway that moves the eye through a painting — front to back, left to right, top to bottom, or their opposites. It works subliminally. The viewer follows it without knowing they're following anything.
I use it as a structural underscore. Not the subject — the carrier of the subject. In the water paintings, the progression runs warm to cool, light to dark, sky into reflection into depth. The eye rides it down and across without being told to.
The best progressions disappear into the painting. You feel the movement. You don't see the mechanism.
I am looking for accidental beauty, in this case different colors—same value
60 x 48 Savage Trees III
Here I am roughing in a value change in a blue hew atop the preivous value shift. With luch I get unintended beauty in multiple areas.