Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Magical Box of Color

"Sixty Four" Mixed Media Watercolor and Crayon 15 x 22
I hope everyone is enjoying a happy and creative holiday season. As the year winds down, I want to thank my many loyal students, several who have painted with me for over a year now, for sharing their art time with me. I’m looking forward to an amazing 2012 and can’t wait to see what you all paint! And I look forward to meeting many new artists in the upcoming year as I teach and venture out to more workshops.

Over the holidays I received many great art and thoughtful owl gifts (thanks everyone!) including a lovely little art book called Water, Paper, and Paint by artist Heather Jones Smith. Ms. Smith includes several interesting watermedia exercises including the one I painted today which stresses watercolor color mixing and color harmony. I call these abstract paintings “color quilts.” FYI, my paper here is a Quiller 140lb Cold Press block. 

In this painting, I used Daniel Smith Quin Gold as my “mother color” meaning every color mixed included some Quin Gold. My other colors included a range of warms and cools such as lemon yellow, permanent rose, cobalt blue, crimson, thalo blue, indigo, winsor violet, etc.
The 64 Crayola box--An artist favorite since 1958.
In addition to many wonderful art books, I also received a classic 64 Crayola crayon box. Arguably one of the one of the best art bargains ever--Less than $3 at Super Target. As you may know some of the Crayola colors have changed since we were young artists in the um seventies but it’s still a magical box of waxy color. I decided to add all 64 colors to today’s exercise painting. (I particularly liked the lighter crayon on the darker watercolor washes.)

Over the holiday break I also watched a Nita Leland video where she talks about exploring the various levels of creativity—from intuitive (pure fun and child like) to genius. On a sunny but still cold winter day like today it was my goal to keep my art brain warm and fuzzy. Mission accomplished. This type of exercise, at least for me, works well as a stepping stone before I return tomorrow into some “more serious” representational oil painting. Stay tuned for that. In the meantime, have a colorful week!  

No comments:

Post a Comment