Studio update--fall 2018--my process and production notes.
September is always a super busy month. My daughter goes back to school and it takes a while for us all to return to the rhythm of the school year routine. It also seems that for some reason there are always more meetings and social events on the calendar in September and they tend to eat up my time and energy. Maybe people are trying to play catch up after a summer off? Plus, with all of the reading and research I want to do for my MFA program, my time was spread even thinner. But I did manage to get back into the studio for a few weeks in order to continue my exploration of color and color theory. And it always feels good to get back into the studio!
My plan is to spend time researching and mixing variations of each color from the color wheel and to use the paint to create book pages for my handmade "art book" and for hand printed papers to use as collage materials.
After exploring black and white over the summer, I started in September with yellow. Yellow is a primary color and is the most visible color in the spectrum. Did you know that it's the color that the human eye processes first?
I have to admit that yellow is not one of my favorite colors. I'm not sure why. It's bright and cheery, but for some reason it isn't a color I gravitate towards when I am creating. Although, I do appreciate it as an accent color when I see it being used.
For example, I created this painting (above) a few years ago in which I used two yellows of different values. I think it works here to draw your eye across the canvas and is a nice complement to the other colors in the piece.
I found it a challenge though to work with yellow as one of the ONLY colors (except black and white). But I think I finally managed to get something done that was visually appealing using the different variants of yellow that I mixed by hand (see above). The colors include: Lemon yellow, Chrome yellow, Imperial yellow, and an interesting shade I had never heard of before called Gamboge.
These are some of the books I read and/or referenced this month while working in the studio. Some were for color inspiration, some were for mark making inspiration.
I also worked on the covers, inserts, section pages and other design elements that I want to incorporate into my book, as well as starting two larger "Color Wheel" paintings on paper that I am working on as companion pieces to my art book. After years of designing books for a living, and then taking a break, it's been fun designing a book again!
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