Listening

A little bit more stitching this week.  Staying with Xs and Os for now and neutral colors, but I can't help thinking about how they will join and what I might do with the background white, but that will come later.

Mainly I've been absorbed in painting all week.  I'm continuing to explore the idea of color contrasts from Studio Journeys this month.  I've been thinking about all the ways of getting variety in two complementary colors, so here violet and yellow.  I've been playing with different hues of paint, different values, intensities, temperatures, and transparencies.

And in this one, exploring blue and orange.

I decided to do another blue and orange to try leaning a little more towards the warmer blues.  I also wanted to play with a central composition that does not extend to the edge of the paper.

I've made a strange discovery lately.  I always liked to paint either in silence or with some wild dance music in the early stages to get everything flowing.  While I'm stitching I enjoy listening to podcasts, lots of them artist interviews.  I especially love The Savvy Painter and The Jealous Curator.  In the interviews, many painters talked about liking to listen to podcasts or books on tape while they paint, but many said they found music distracting.  That seemed so alien to me.  I thought I'd be distracted by the spoken word.

I was way behind on listening to podcasts, so I thought I'd try some while painting.  I couldn't believe how much I enjoyed that!  They actually seemed to help me focus on painting and were still easy to follow.  I was listening to an interview with Jill Bolte Taylor, the neuroscientist who had a stroke and observed what was happening in her brain.  She described the left hemisphere shutting down and being unable to process language and reason, but the right hemisphere being free to see the bigger picture and have stronger intuition.  It made me wonder if that's what spoken word does while painting.  It keeps that language side of the brain busy enough that it quiets it down, and you are left working more intuitively.  That's how it seems to work for me anyway.  I felt like I was more absorbed in the painting process and that critic in my brain wasn't allowed to talk.

 I also discovered a new-to-me highly addictive podcast out of the BBC called Desert Island Disks.  Celebrities from all fields are interviewed and asked what 8 songs, 1 book, besides The Bible and Complete Works of Shakespeare which they are automatically given, and 1 luxury item they would take if stranded on a desert island.  It's really fascinating to hear the stories that go along with the music they choose.  Bill Gates interview was especially fun.

Painting Large

In Studio Journeys, our art bundle, or monthly lesson plan, for Jan. has been scale.  Those who tend to paint small are encouraged to paint large, and those who already paint large are encouraged to try very small paintings.  My challenge has been to go bigger.  I've gotten pretty comfortable with the 12" square or the 16x20".  This painting is not huge, but it is a step up at 24x30".  I'd like to try some really big paintings like 5 ft. x 6 ft, but that seems impossible until weather warms up and I can use the garage.  There is quite a challenge to keep the same loose energy going as you go bigger, a whole new set of tools required, but it is exciting and I'm eager to experiment a lot more.

For this painting I used the Zorn Palette which I've fallen in love with--cadmium red medium, yellow ochre, black and white.

Deep Experimentation

More experiments with the Zorn palette.  I wanted to explore the range of colors and moods I could get with those same 4 colors--black, white, Cadmium Red med. and Yellow Ochre.  I'm also trying to be even more raw in painting, not polishing them up so much.  Nancy Hillis has a phrase--deep experimentation--that is always in my mind.  I think that will be my word(s) for the year.  To me it's about showing up, listening deeply to intuition, trying the uncomfortable, and hardest of all, doing a lot of paintings that I end up not even liking.  There's a lot of letting go to work on this year, but I think that's where the more exciting work is.

I love this time of year, reviewing what worked and didn't work last year and planning for the new one.   To set a direction for painting, I've been using these questions from Donna Zagotta's blog a few years ago.  I've probably paraphrased them, but they are basically what she asks.

1.  In the next 12 months, I want to accomplish--

2.  To achieve my goals, I will have to--

3.  My current interests are--

4.  Some things I would like to explore in my work--

5.  Words I want to have describe my work--

6.  3 artists I want to have as mentors--

7.  One specific thing I like about each of these artist's work--

8.  I can incorporate some of these ideas into my own by--

9.   If I could paint only one subject--

10.  I love painting this subject because--

11.  I can create a series on this subject by--

12.  I will love my paintings when--

I've answered them for painting, but I think I'll now go back and see how they apply to my stitching.

Zorn Palette

You know how sometimes one little bit of information from a class makes you feel like you got your money's worth?  I remember taking a quilting class years ago in which the teacher demonstrated the quilter's knot.  I can't even remember what sort of quilt we made, but I have never forgotten that life changing knot!

I think the Zorn Palette may be my quilter's knot for Studio Journeys.  This is such a simple, elegant palette that I'm surprised I never heard of it before.  It is the palette used by 19th century Swiss painter, Anders Zorn and consists of only 2 colors and black and white.  But what a gorgeous range of blends come from those colors!  He used yellow ochre and cadmium red, then Mars black in place of any blue, and white.  I didn't have any Mars black so substituted Carbon black.  I'm not sure if that makes much of a difference or not.  I'd like to try different blacks to find out.

Below is the palette in my sketchbook, with several values of each blend.  The squiggles are little samples of the yellow, red, and black mixed together in different proportions.  I then did a 12"x12" painting using this palette.  It has been so interesting to see these posted on our Facebook group because depending on the emphasis, you can get an entirely different look, from earthy to more vibrant.

I have really been enjoying these studies in limited palettes.  It feels good to squeeze out only a few paints and know they will not be wasted.  And the simplicity allows me to pay more attention to value.  I'll be revisiting this palette quite often!

Color Experiments

When I found out that our second art bundle in Studio Journeys was going to be about working with color constraints, I was a little disappointed.  I've done so many color wheel studies and done paintings using only compliments or analogous colors, and I assumed we would be doing more of those.  I am so thrilled that Nancy Hillis took a different approach.

We started by using only secondary colors.  That never occurred to me to even try.  We mixed purple and green, purple and orange, and green and orange as the basis for our palette, and then mixed in black, white and two grays.  The secondaries produced a gorgeous range of colors with lots of earthy, subtle blends.

I decided to follow my friend Paula's example and keep good notes in a notebook.  Beside each palette study I did a small color study painting.  Those led to lots of different questions for more exploration.  What if I emphasized purple instead of green, what if I emphasized the dark values or the brighter intensities?  These experiments give way for a whole range of painting ideas.

This first mix is from Golden's Permanent Violet dark and Utrecht Veridian hue (a color that has always been way too harsh on its own, but it produced some gorgeous blends.)

Golden's Permanent Violet dark mixed with Golden's Cadmium Orange.

And Utrecht Viridian Green with Golden's Cadmium Orange

After I did those initial studies, I wondered what would happen if I started with a different version of the secondaries.  I grabbed some different tubes and started blending, then mixed each blend with a little white.  I then chose one of my favorite combinations to do another small study.

Green and Violet blends.

Violet and Orange.

Green and Orange.

I got a little obsessed doing these as I found the results quite delicious.  It feels like I now have a shortcut to the perfect color.  I spend so much time mixing the perfect dusty aqua, for example, with a bit of this and a bit more of that.  Now I can get a head start on it by starting with the right secondaries. 

It was also the perfect little quick project for the month.  With my son home from college and lots of Christmas activities going on, I couldn't focus on anything much bigger than this.  Happy Holidays Everyone!

November Leaves series

I finished the November Leaves series I was working on for Nancy Hillis's Studio Journeys.  I'm used to working in a series, but gave a little more thought to this one along the way.  Working in a series lets me see what habits I get into.  One that popped out at me is that I tend to compose in a circular manner and leave the center open when working in a square format.  So for these last 2 pieces in the series, I made sure I put something in the center and did a more asymettrical compostion.

Some series are tightly related from the beginning and clearly show the theme.  In this one the November leaves idea just served as a jumping off point, and really, my paintings had little related to what November leaves were actually looking like at the time.  That didn't bother me.  To me the important thing is finding inspiration to work and letting one painting inform the next.  At the end though, I did want to include that burst of bright yellow that was still clinging to the trees even late in November.

We're now doing some very exciting color studies which I'll post next week.  After working with these neutrals all month, I'm ready for a new palette.

November Leaves 4

This is the fourth in my November Leaves series.  I'm doing these in Nancy Hillis's online Studio Journeys group and enjoying it so much.  Our first Art Bundle, or assignment, was to work in a series.  This is not new to me, but I have enjoyed approaching working in a series with more consciousness.  I found that after I painted the first three however I wanted, I was ready to start pushing myself on a few things.  On this fourth one, I wanted to play with more minimalism, although I'm not sure if most would consider this very minimalist.  The constraints I've given myself for this series is black, white and earth tones in a 12" square.

November Leaves 4, acrylic on paper, 12x12"

Studio Journeys

I have been taking part in Nancy Hillis's Studio Journeys this month.  It's a monthly program that includes ideas, instructions, and community for abstract painting. Each month she provides an art bundle which gives a focus for the month.  This first one is "work in a series."  I was a little hesitant to join because I already work in series, but I have been fully enjoying it.  I like having an assignment to focus on for the month and some inspiration for doing it.  The Facebook community has about 350 members and has been a fantastic place for seeing a wide range of abstract painting.  Looking at so much work helps me clarify what I do and don't like in abstract painting, and it helps me clarify what  my own style is.

This month we are instructed to brainstorm 10 different series we could explore, then choose one.  We come up with some constraints for our series, make between 5-10 starts, and then choose some to develop fully.

I decided to work with November leaves.  Only in the middle of painting them did I recognize how similar my painting is to my stitching projects.  I can't seem to stay away from subtle shifts in the seasons.  Maybe because I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, where our seasons consisted of brown hills or green ones, I am now fascinated by all the shifts in the sky, earth,and plants that occur in Portland, often even in the course of a day!

My constraints for this series are 12" squares and black, white and earth tones.  I started each piece by very roughly drawing leaves I had collected.  They pretty much disappear in the final versions, but provide a little starting energy to get me going.

"November Leaves 1", acrylic on paper, 12"x12"