Cigarette Series part 2

From top right, clockwise "MISSILE" 4"X 4", "KILLER" 10"X10", and "DUNE SMOKE" 4"X 4"

I had a good week painting cigarettes, but I still have to put in the smoke. The white ashtray painting was so fun to paint.  I really liked rendering the white planes of the ashtray.  The background is a rich mixture of Thalo Green, Alizarin Crimson, Prussian Blue, Raw Umber and Mars Black, and reads in some parts black, and other parts super COLORFUL (for me).  

"PARTY ON" 8"x 10"

This woody little cigarette painting was a little boring till I got into the wood grain and the weird boxes in the background showed up.  Now it is singing.

"COUPLE'S THERAPY" 10"X10"

Ok, I was trying to add smoke and ended up repainting everything except the background.  Now, the color scheme has changed tremendously.  There is a lot of color now. Argh, I do this all the time.  My friend Angelo Di Pietrantonio www.angelodipietrantionio.com made an observation that I had overlooked. He said that without the smoke, you couldn’t get the sense of smell or the taste of the cigarette, (spoken like a true ex-smoker).  Non-smokers can’t appreciate this. They don’t miss the smoke at all. 

Now, thanks to Angelo, I am on day three of trying to add this swell smoke.  It’s so hard to paint smoke, it’s something that is there and yet not there.  It keeps turning into solid concrete, or cement  I am so good at painting sidewalks.  It doesn’t help that this composition is entirely from my head, something I used to do almost exclusively, but after teaching high school students to draw from observation, I find myself wanting to use my eyes more than my head. So far, I like the smoke, but is it ok that it doesn’t reach the tip of the cigarette?