Painting the blues

Now that I have the entire painting sketched in, and my basic chuen brushstrokes and light values established, I can concentrate on the task of coloring.  

The painting pays homage to Red Cliffs, so I am dedicating the right side of the painting to the red cliffs; since that portion of the landscape is facing the audience, so making those cliffs red would be more fitting for the title.

I am going to start with the left side of the painting.  This is the shore across from the red cliffs alongside the river.  My choice of color be something along the bluish line.  In painting I am always reminded of the relationship among the different parts of the painting; how they contrast or support each other.  I am not sure if there's the concept of color wheel in classical Chinese painting and I might be out of place by saying that the application of color wheel is a strictly a western practice but I think it serves my purpose in this case.  I've not attended art school or anything, all I know is that colors on opposite sides of the color wheel are complementary color combinations and they tend to be more dramatic.  Drama is what I want in this painting!  Since I am not using a pure red I suppose I can fudge a little by not using a pure green.  I decide to use blue and green as my complimentary color to "reddish" for this part of the painting. 

I am also continuing to explore the coloring from the back of the Xuan paper method.  The paper I am using is sufficiently thin and translucent for the color to come through from the backside of the paper.  The advantage of coloring from the back is the presentation is more subdued, and it allows for more transparency for subsequent application of color on the top side.  In a way it resembles working with layers or masks in photoshop and not so much with mixing colors in a dish.

The darker areas of the red cliffs also receive a layer of blue color applied from the back of the paper.

This is how everything appears from the top side of the Xuan paper,