Art Every Day Month - November 21

Mixing Relationships between Colors





We're all familiar with the standard circular color wheel, showing the primary colors of red, yellow and blue, and their relationships to a number of other colors. Color wheels have been tools of scientific examination since the days of Sir Issac Newton who used prisms to split white light from the sun into a continuous spectrum of colors.

What I did for today's Art Every Day for the Month challenge is more of a color mixing chart than a color wheel. I arranged four base colors, alizarin crimson, lemon yellow, viridian, and prussian blue, into the four corners of the rectangle. The two blocks in between each pair of base colors show the colors mixed from those pairs, across the top, bottom, sides and diagonally through the center of the rectangle.

If I had paid a bit more attention while I was working, I might have mixed up enough fluid colors to paint flat washes on each of the 16 blocks. I might also have been a bit more precise about the proportions of base colors I used, and even paid some attention to the tinting strength of the base colors, too. Lessons learned for next time.

But even this simple mixing chart demonstrates the intermediary relationships between these four base colors, and that's what I was hoping it would do.

Art Every Day Month - November 20

16-Block Exercise Based on a Painting by Paul Klee

When I was a student, I was given an assignment to study the work of an artist of my choice. I had to demonstrate my familiarity with the work of this artist by presenting a written report, accompanied by an entirely original visual composition done in the style of that artist. The artist I chose back then was Paul Klee.

When I was figuring out what I could do with the 16-block format I have assigned myself for AEDM this month, I was reminded of Klee's much-reproduced painting, Senecio. This painting was crying out to be chopped up into 16 blocks! So I set in to do the interpretation.

And with some adjustment in proportions, it worked. Although the original painting is in oil, the watercolor techniques I am using worked reasonably well, too. I stepped back from the 16-block arrangement pleased with today's results.

Art Every Day Month - November 19

16 M's







My initial, and also the initial of Maya Angelou, who says:
"Not everything you create will be a masterpiece, but you get out there and you try, and sometimes it really happens. The other times you're just stretching your soul."
Thanks to Leah at the home site of Art Every Day Month for this quote.

So, this Maya Angelou quote was running through my mind as I started with today's challenge.
I wanted some imagery that would develop briskly on the paper but still be a challenge in technique and rendering.
Some icon or logo, I thought... maybe some oriental character? ... What about using capital letters?

I thought, well, where's the challenge in just painting letters?
And then I thought there's that quote, it's telling me that if nothing else, my challenge will be staying with the project and making it happen.
And if it doesn't work this time, according to Maya Angelou, at least I'm stretching my soul.

As it turned out, today's painting was a bit of a challenge technically.
I haven't created letters with a brush since I was in my teens, and I became fascinated with how the shape of the letter showed up against its background.
I attempted shading the letter with lighter and darker strokes, and I was just as intrigued with the failures in rendering as with the successes.

In the end, this sheet of 16 M's reminds me of rough hand-lettered signs, carnival sideshow banners, and for some reason, a children's book that I may have owned when I was little.

And I'm thinking that my soul is being stretched every time I glance over and take another look at one of those 16 M's.

Art Every Day Month - November 18

Lost in the Translation







I spent a good part of today listening to downloaded audio conferences, and as I was listening, I was doodling with a pencil.

Before I knew it, I had some interesting little value studies on the go.
All tiny rectangles. A page full of them. And it all had a very familiar look to it.
So I thought, how would these gray-scale designs translate into the watercolor painting arrangements I'm doing for the AEDM daily challenges?

I picked three tubes of colors to represent the dark, medium and light tones in the pencil drawings: alizarin crimson, opera magenta and permanent yellow. And I tried to work as loosely with the paint as I had done with the pencil.

Now that it's done, I do not feel that I have represented the graphite sketches at all as I had intended.
Perhaps I should have used a single color of paint and done a monotone value study to reproduce the pencil work.
Perhaps my choice of colors didn't represent the full tonal range of the graphite.

No matter, it was an experiment, and sometime before the month is out, I will take what I have learned, and paint it again.

Art Every Day Month - November 17

Layers: Diluted Washes








I have been challenged to do a watercolor landscape from a photograph of an early winter sunset on a quiet, partially frozen lake.
All the colors in the photo are pale, but they do cover the full spectrum of color.
There are dark areas in the foreground of the photo, but I may crop them out in the painting, or I may leave them in to give weight to the bottom of the composition.
We'll see.

My experiments yesterday with graded washes showed me that to do this winter sunset project, I need to thin my watercolor paints much more than I have been.
So for today's 16-block challenge, I began working in layers of heavily diluted color to achieve the range of tones I would need for this landscape, letting each color layer dry before I applied the next.
At one point I was startled when I realized that the water I was rinsing my brush in was more intense than the paint I was carefully mixing to apply as a wash.

It seems strange that I could accomplish today's art challenge with the tiniest dabs of three colors of paint, but I am happy with the opalescent quality of the light that I am seeing reflected off the paper.

If it works, that's what matters.

Art Every Day Month - November 16

Graded Washes II - Allowing It To Happen

Today's challenge was graded washes, using Opera magenta, prussian blue and permanent yellow, and allowing the colors to blend on the paper.

My friend Patricia Scarborough says it's good to "allow" things to happen and not force them, to let things happen at their own pace. She'd be good at watercolor painting.

The technique of watercolor is that you dissolve in water the pigments and dyes and binders of the paint, and then you allow the colors to disperse on the paper according to their own characteristics.
Some watercolor paints have particles that settle on the paper and emphasize the texture of the paper or the trail of the brush.
Some are made of floating powders that dry in a dusty layer wherever the water carries them.
Some watercolor paints stain the paper permanently, and some are vulnerable to smudging anytime at the touch of a moist fingertip.

Watercolor paintings keep on painting themselves long after the brushes are rinsed and the rags are hung to dry.
That's the key to understanding watercolor technique.

And the hardest thing about using watercolors is allowing them to respond, on their own, to the physics of the fluid surrounding them.
No meddling, no touching-up, just letting it happen.

No forcing it.
Allowing it to happen.

Art Every Day Month - November 15

Spirited Calligraphy

I found a quote from one of my old painting teachers, John R. Fox, who passed away recently:

"I believe that a painting has to be a feast for the eyes.
I try to create in my art something that makes me feel alive.
Any art that makes me feel better is good." - John R. Fox

The colors I used in today's challenge, a flat wash of cadmium yellow underpainting, with Opera magenta and alizarin crimson details in the blocks, would look bright and cheerful in any painting.
When you look closely, the alizarin crimson actually looks dull and brownish in contrast with the much more saturated pink and yellow.

But it is the active brushstrokes that bring this painting to life.
I blotted these calligraphic marks out of wet washes with a brush that I first wiped absolutely dry, and then put a touch of color straight from the tube just on the tip.
When I made a firm heavy stroke, the dry brush sucked the wet paint away, and the concentrated paint laid itself down on the paper in the same movement.

This painting certainly makes me feel enlivened just looking at it, and I am grateful that the 16 block arrangement has become truly a feast for the eyes.