As I worked on my last few pieces, I felt that when creating the background, my palette started to be limited to using the same color repeatedly.
When I sorted my tubes of paint, as I described in the first article of my blog, I found out that I don't use some colors at all.
My work on the background is spontaneous, but I started to feel that I should add a little planning to choosing a palette.
So, I turned to my personal library and looked for a book that could help me. Unfortunately, I did not find anything that would fulfill my idea of combining the fun of discovering new combinations of colors and the desired result of an extended palette in my works of art.
When I resorted to searching the Internet, the Virtual Art Summit 2021 hosted by Kellee Wynne Studios jumped out at me almost immediately. As an emerging artist and student, I was pleasantly surprised that I could only pay as much as I could afford. This summit consists of half-hour lessons from sixteen different artists and is dedicated to working with colors.
Alice Sheridan's course has undoubtedly become my favorite. Her technique of working with colors is fantastic, and it is exactly what I was looking for.
In this exercise, you apply different shades of paint to three taped papers with dynamic brushstrokes until the space on them is completely filled. The fun then continues when you use the viewfinder to search for a suitable composition or color combination on these sheets of paper. This simple exercise for me was like discovering a whole new world of how to work with colors. And since the colors are an essential part of my work, it has given me new inspiration to create an original palette.
The other courses were as inspiring and informative as Alice's. Thanks to lectures from Rachel Juanita Bellamy, Robyn McClendon, and Drew Steinbrecher, I pulled out my Gelli plate, which had been tucked to the bottom of the drawer for more than a year, and now I can't stop printing. But more about that in the next post.
