Inspiring Color Palette

Yesterday I was flipping thru an art magazine that had been lying around for a while and came across an image who's palette I found very fresh and exciting.  A landscape by Kathy Hirsh, created with watercolor and pastel on Wallis paper (as you may know...three of my favorite materials!)

So I tore out the photo and brought it with me to figure drawing group last night, armed with the same materials.  When the model settled into the long pose of the evening, I started with a drawing in red watercolor pencil, which I then washed out most of the way.  Then I started blocking in the shapes of the figure and the chair.

The palette is predominantly various shades of light greens, warm oranges, and small accents of cool blue and a little bit of purple.  I tried to think about the proportions of each color as I drew the figure.

At this point it was a little too red and green - red figure, green background.  And I kept playing with her profile!  I should have stuck a sticky note on it...I was also grabbing my lilac pastel and having too much fun applying it everywhere!  I PUT THE LILAC DOWN and moved on to the lime greens and peaches again.

At this stage everything is feeling a little better as far as working together - the background and figure have many layers of red, greens and peaches, not just one or the other.  I'm still not 100% happy with her profile, so I'll work on that some more. 

I liked working from this palette - I will probably try it again!