Following up on my last blog and another I did for ArtID, I'm continuing this idea of challenging myself to foster a sense of change so as to push those comfort levels just a bit more. . .This is an acrylic/gouache painting I did earlier this spring on 200 lbs. acrylic paper. Now, sometimes when I stand in front of the easel or worktable and want to do something along a similar theme but with a different palette, I go blank. I freeze. I cannot seem to think of a group of colors. Silly, I know. Afterall, I can do it for when I coordinate my clothes and acessories for work; I can do it for my makeup; I can do it for quilting or knitting. And yet it seems so much more difficult with paints. Go figure . . . ?
So I turn to my computer and my graphics software and begin to play the "what if" game. Here is a small slice from the above work, then altered by using the negative tool and working the hue/saturation from there:
Now what I have is a very interesting nightscape or a fantasy celestial combination of colors, all of which I can work off of. Now I can begin to visualize a new painting. You can see how some of the paint spots turned white and appear to be glints of light or starlight.I did this exercise with several older works, cropping, flipping, adjusting colors, moving to negative and then adjusting the colors -- all to see how different a painting can appear with a change in palette and/or focusing on a portion of the larger work.
The trick is not to spend all your time on the computer! At some point it becomes "step away from the computer, nice and easy now!"
2 comments:
That is so gorgeous! Wish I knew how to play like that.
Sherrill, Montreal
Sherrill -- I can't take the credit -- it's all in the software, a simple photo software package that probably comes with every digital camera. But thanks for your compliment!
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