Orange

The last few days I've been trying to get back into a groove of painting. With studio construction back underway and various other projects I'm working on, painting has taken a lower position on my priority list. Building momentum always takes time, and can be frustrating. I flailed around for a while, and then decided to go back to something that feels reasonably comfortable.

As a workshop assignment I often do my Complementary Colors exercise. Here are a couple of  examples, which are 10"x10":

Achieving as much variety as I can within one color is a great exercise, and it helps me focus. So I decided to play with orange on top of "works in progress" (which means works that have been hanging around, unfinished, for a while and need an injection of drama). The following pieces are 20"x20" on panel:

The colors I've used here are:

• Vat Orange
• Pyrrole Orange
• Transparent Pyrrole Orange
• Cadumium Orange 
• Dairilyde Yellow
• Azo Yellow
• Hansa Yellow
• WHITE

Plus Caran d'Ache NeoColorII crayons.

Tearing Pages

In the spirit of experimentation, I tried tearing a few of my sketchbook pages in two, then tearing same blank pages in the same way and switching them. You may have seen my post on the Sketchbook Challenge blog about my Color Collage Pages. I had a sort of break-through with them, and it was a lot of fun. So what could be more fun than tearing them apart?
Very liberating! Here is the purple page, glued to a torn blank page:
And here is the orange and blue page glued to a blank page with some painting and drawing:
I first filled in some areas with watercolor (not my usual medium), then did the drawing BLIND, yes, with my eyes closed, with a gel pen. I opened my eyes to make that top left shape into a chicken. I knew those chickens would show up somewhere! If you are afraid of drawing, try it with your eyes closed. It gives you a lovely sensation of movement, contact with the paper, slowness or speed. Let me know if you've ever tried this, or if you have any other tips for the drawing-challenged. Thanks for visiting.

PS: My new revised web site is up today.