Lines in the snow

Theme for Focus52, Week four (January 22 to 28): Leading Lines

A study in orange

The colour for January for the Creative Colour Challenge is orange, and we're supposed to create something using only this colour. I decided to do a little colour study, mixing different oranges, and creating a whole page of orange, including some information about this colour.

According to the  book on colour in which I looked up orange, it is the least favourite colour after brown. Now while I wouldn't really want to wear anything orange, I've always quite liked the colour, especially for painting. It is so vibrant, and strong, and juicy, and it can make bright and happy colour accents.

Orange is between yellow and red, it's complementary colour is blue. Its geometric form is the pentagon, its position on the spectrum lies between 600nm (yellow orange) and 650nm (red orange). It is a modern colour, up till the end of the Middle Ages, pure orange was not used in European painting. It was regarded as a poor and unsuccessful form of red, and therefore avoided. It is named after the orange fruit in most languages.

It's connotations are: youth, courage, warmth, sun, extraversion, warning, caution, sunset, sociability, sympathy, compassion, health, desire, lust, willingness to make sacrifices, autumn. Orange is radiant, bright, loud, glaring, garish, bold, striking, noticable, cheap, purging. Orange is the colour of health, it is purifying and is good for one's nerves. Hyperactive, nervours and choleric persons should avoid the colour. Orange is an "opening" colour, it promotes the capacity for enthusiasm and releases blockades.

Paint Party 46*4 ~ turning into a fairy tale

It's Friday, and therefore time for the Paint Party! I haven't got anything new yet for this week, still working on my tree landscape, which seems to be turning into some kind of fairy tale scene. Not yet quite sure where it is going, and if it will work. It definitely needs a lot more work. But I'm quite enjoying the silly patterns and details at the moment :).

My red flower meadow definitely needs some more work, though - at the moment, it looks more like a blood soaked battle field than a lovely field of flowers. And a blood soaked battle field is definitely not what I want on my living room wall.

Happy Paint Party Friday!

On my palette ~ green, green, green

I read about the Palette & Paint Blog Party last week, on Tracey Fletcher King's blog, and I thought it just sounded marvelous. Palette & Paint is hosted by Tracey Grgig Potter (don't miss visiting he blogs of both Traceys, they're fabulous!) and the idea is to share one's palette and paint. It's always interesting to see how others work, what paints, colours, techniques, materials are used, it's so inspiring.

I'm still working on my "landscape with trees" painting, and therefore the greens dominate my palette at the moment. Green is one of my favourite colours. It has a wonderful feel of calm, comfort and nature. It's a happy colour.

I'm playing around with different kinds of greens, such as Olive green, Olive green deep, Olive green light (I like my olive greens...), Chromium oxide green, Perylene green, Permanent sap green. But also some basic Cyan blue and Lemon yellow to mix some more greens. And some Titanium white, of course, can't do without that. And last but not least, some Cadmium red deep hue to add some colour and contrast.

I didn't manage to take a new picture of my painting last night to go with these, so for this post, I'm afraid, it's just my paint and palette. But I hope to manage to post one tomorrow, for Paint Part Friday, and do a bit better for next week's P&P.

Hop over to the Paint & Palette Blog Party to see what others have on their palette!

Winter light

It's week 48 of Picture Inspiration already, and this week's prompt is "Winter Light". I had taken these pictures on the Sunday before, actually, but "winter light" was exactly what I had in mind on that early (well not that early, really) Sunday morning walk.

The moments of happiness we enjoy take us by surprise. It is not that we seize them, but that they seize us. (Ashley Montagu)

So, four weeks left to go. Taking a look at the statistics in the classroom gallery, I managed to take/post a total of 29 pictures for 25 of the prompts, and the last one I posted was in week 40 (two months ago? Really??). That makes it just slightly more than half of the prompts. It's more than I thought, actually, but much less than I intended. But I'm really really determined now to complete the last 4 prompts now.

If you don't like it, just start again // Paint Party Friday 45*3

There really is no point in going on with a painting when everything tells you it's just not going to work. And there's also no point in keeping half painted canvases, or even finished ones, stacked away somewhere, taking up space and gathering dust, when you simply don't like them at all and know that you'll never ever fnish them. There really is just one thing to do - paint over it and start again. Which is exactly what I did last Sunday.

So far, it's only  a rough sketch, the first layer of (possible) colours. But  already, I like it a lot better than the first one, underneath. I love the colour green, and I love going for walks in the woods and country side. Nature is so inspiring. So I wanted to bring some of that into my home. I've also been thinking a lot about dreams and wishes these past few weeks and months, and especially now, with the beginning of a new year. The shape I associate with dreams and wishes is round - circles, bubbles, polka dots. But I also like lines, which give direction, point the way, lead you on on your journey through life, or just on your Sunday walk through the local woods.

There is of course still a lot to with this one, and I'll just have to see how it comes along. I hope to spend most of Sunday working on it. And if I don't like it at all, well, I'll just paint over it, and start again ;)

I'm so delighted with this green glass jar I bought in a second hand/thrift shop yesterday. There were two of them, and I just wish I had bought the other one too...

Happy Paint Part Friday!

Portrait #4

Finished portrait #4 last night, using some charcoal sticks I bought earlier. I bought them because I liked the fact that the box contained a range of grey tones in addition to white and black. But  I wasn't  too happy with them, though. The consistency reminded me more of those chalks used on blackboards, and they're very dusty.

At the moment, the portraits seem to develop a "life" of their own, with me having only limited influence in the process. I use pictures in magazines as a reference, but I'm not too bothered about producing any real likeness. It's the pose, the angle, the proportions, the highlights and shadows I'm interested in, and I just add layer after layer, wondering how she will turn out, what kind of emotion, mood will emerge. Here, I think it's a kind of pain or distress. Maybe she's having a slight headache, or remembering/thinking about something unpleasant. I'm quite enjyoing this rather intuitive process at the moment.

After I took the photo, I actually worked some more on her, I just couldn't stop. Maybe I'll replace the photo later on with the finished version.