Green & White: Calm

 

This week in my Creative Spark class we have been studying color.  I tend to be drawn to blues and greens but the mixture of green and white stood out to me this week as a calming mixture.  For me, the life and vivacity of green coupled with the blank possibility of white create a balance of peace and calm. This painting was inspired by contemplation through our color exercises designed by Tara, a bar of soap, the lovely script text of a package at Trader Joe's, and the quote by writer Joan Didion included in the painting.

 

Below is the original painting before I cropped it to correct the wonky composition.

 

 

A Walk in The Woods

A walk in the woods was just what I needed...to once again feel that I too belonged in the universe. Amazing how the trees and leaves and rocks and breezes and blue skies can do that.

Rainy Day at Sea

Rainy Day at Sea

After several versions and revisions a new painting has emerged.  This painting reminds me of the beauty found in storms and how the world around us changes in depth of color based on the light and clouds.  The song Lillie by Lisa Hannigan played in my mind often while working on the last phase of this painting as well. 

I first started painting on the canvas horizontally and in the first phases was reminded of being underwater.  Then I added orbs of color and the painting took on more of a fall-leaves feeling to me.  I liked it to a certain degree but I over did it with the orbs and did not like the end result.  After a white wash of sorts the painting entered a seriously ugly phase and I added the dragonfly.  Thankfully (I say this now but did not think it then) Alan reminded me I already had one dragonfly painting.  After I set with this for a while I realized I was playing it safe and going back to something known.   After a while I decided the canvas needed to be turned vertically and then the sea and sky appeared and began to take shape.  I really do like that underneath the sea lives a dragonfly too.

The first phases of the painting:

Spreading different colors on the canvas

Layering orbs of color

Sketch of a dragonfly on the canvas

Dragonfly

Green in the Grey

Clover

Today the sky is the color of slate and there is a slow and steady drizzle falling.  The leaves that have been hanging on tightly to the trees are now coming down in droves but it was this patch of green clover that caught my eye this morning.  It reminds me of my brief trip to Washington State  and how the grey skies there made the greenery even more intense.

Blueberry Picking

Saturday I had the delight of meeting up with an old friend for a quick breakfast and three hours of blueberry picking.  I love that these blueberry fields are off the beaten path and that the honor system can still be found here with an attention getting yellow lock box the only technology I needed to interact with. 

Honor Box

The blueberries were found in a meadow surrounded by woods and they grew on these tall tree-like bushes. 

Entering the meadow, the blueberries are off to the left

The bushes were heavy with berries of each life stage from tiny green buds to medium cranberry like berries and all the way up to button sized berries full of sweetness and smiles.
 

I actually picked more berries than I ate (2 gallons) but made up for that later when I got home and went about cleaning and drying them. The berries are the most beautiful shade of blue-purple-black depending on the light and remind me of what I imagine octopus ink would look like.

Just-washed blueberries

Week 3 of Get Your Paint On

Week 3 of Get Your Paint On was all about color.  The assignment was to choose 4 colors from your environment, re-create those colors in paint and use just those colors in your work.  I immediately thought of a new throw rug that I had just purchased that reminds me of the ocean. 

Since the colors remind me of the ocean I thought I would do an ocean scene with a huge swirly sunshine and a quirky whale.  On Tuesday the whale turned into a whale shark and I thougt it would not be quirky but realistic. When Wednesday rolled around I thought of jellyfish and figured I had better get started painting. When I actually started painting I realized that my swirly sunshine did not match the overall feel of the painting and so the swirly sunshine turned into a moon.

The color mixing process was an eye opener and while I admit I did not get each color dead on (they dry much different then expected) I was still pleased with the results.  My seemingly simple color pallet was Butter Cream, Slate, Light Blue, and Dark Turquoise.  And here are my findings on these colors.

Light Blue:  First I wanted to cover the canvas in Light Blue (yippy I did a canvas this week).  When I started mixing this color I added too much blue and not enough white so I ended up adding a ton of white throughout the mixing process.  After the first mix I held up the paint to my rug and realized there was black in the light blue so I added black next.  After mixing black I did another check and saw a purple tint to the light blue so I added red and more white too. The mixing process for this color took me so long that the paint got really dried out and clumpy.  I was begining to wonder if paint was like bread dough and that I had ruined it by "handling" it too much.  In the end I had some clumps that I had to sand off of the canvas but that gave me practice in sanding. The final mix for the background of Light Blue was:  Titanium White, Primary Blue,Mars Black, and Primary Red.

Butter Cream: Secondly I painted the sunshine (that became a moon) and jellyfish Butter Cream.  I started with white and yellow on this one (thinking of butter and powdered sugar by the way).  From there I added brown and then saw a red undertone in the original color and added a red brown.  The final mix for Butter Cream was:  Titanium White, Primary Yellow, Yellow Ochre, Raw Umber, and Burnt Sienna.

Slate:  When I first saw this color in the rug I really thought it as a blue-black color.  When I started mixing this I realized it was closer to slate and composed of blues, greens, and black with white added to dull the color.  I added two different greens and yellow to get to the final color.  The final mix for Slate was:  Mars Black, Primary Blue, Titanium White, Phthalo Green, Hooker Green, Primary Yellow, Yellow Ochre. 

Dark Turquoise:  My eye originally saw this color on the rug as turquoise but I see now it is much darker then that.  This color came from  taking the above color mix for Slate and adding more green and white.  Maybe it is because it was the last color that I mixed but this one was actually the easiest.





From Inspiration to final Painting

 

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