Getting My Colour Mixing Mojo On. Painting Outdoors In The Spring Sunshine Feeling Inspired By The Fresh
Getting my colour mixing mojo on. Painting outdoors in the Spring sunshine feeling inspired by the fresh colours around me in the garden and from walks in the surrounding fields, lanes and woodland.I had forgotten how much I love this!
In the late 1980′s and early 1990′s after graduating, I worked freelance as a textiles designer and also travelled to South America after winning a travel bursary award in a design competition. I was inspired by the pre-Hispanic, ancient textiles of Peru, where the Incas and other ancient civilisations used natural dyes to create their woven cloth. I travelled through Peru, Columbia, Ecuador, Bolivia, Argentina and down to the very south of Chile and had the best time. I researched natural dyes, spending time of the beaten track, living with indigenous people and learning from them. We picked roots by moonlight and gathered plants on specific dates linked to the Inca calendar, there was lots of superstition surrounding the dyeing process but also much wisdom and understanding of the life cycle of each plant and when it would give the best sources of colour.
On my return, I spent most of my time mixing colours from gouache and saving the match pots in 35mm film canisters as sample colours. This was pre-digital when everything was hand painted and drawn out in detail for selling to design companies. I had forgotten my love of colour matching and mixing and remembered my workshop space had literally hundreds of these hand mixed colour swatches lining the shelves for reference when recreating new colour palettes.
Thes images show my process of stretching fabric, priming, layering colours over a series of days with time between to ponder what colours to mix and add for balance, harmony and also composition. Enjoying myself!
More Posts from Strodetextiles and Others
Lockdown can be a time for CREATIVE isolation and I am really enjoying being at home with access to a table and sunlight to play and experiment with monotone mark making.
Expressive drawings inspired by Jim Dine. Rally fun session, learning to let go and loosen up. Well done. A level Art.
Let me know if you enjoyed it, if it was helpful, what you learned from it.... thanks. Shall we do more one-off drawing sessions?
Gestural marks, fluid and expressive. Enjoying overlaying inks and acrylics with potential to print scaled up marks?
Inspiration everywhere. Look up, look down, keep your eyes open and SEE what’s around. Love the layered road markings, grates, drain covers, yellow lines and markings on our roads and pavements.
Amazing fashion illustrations by talented AS Textiles student.
Excellent use of ‘extreme’ paper collage on Vogue fashion imagery to personalise her own designs. Love these!
#paper collage #origami #time consuming #fashion illustration
Textiles students in full flow creating free-machine stitched creatures in dissolvable fabric for wearable art neckpieces based around sea-life and observations at the aquarium.
Fabrication brief.
Student were asked to donate 5 items of old clothing to explore this communal response to the fashion industry and sustainability. This activity asked them to wrap and layer their garments as a parcel to collate as a collaborative wall installation. The first image shows a focused drawing of one talented students response to this task. A beautifully observed watercolour study.
A parking fine inspired me to channel my frustration into something more positive. The yellow colour palette and use of repetitive imagery and text were the focus when creating this new sketchbook. Surprising what can inspire you!
Moving forward to cropping and playing around with compositional decision making next. I am drawn to a square format and trying to maintain the expressive, gestural marks when deciding what works as a balanced piece.
I may add further detail, maybe stitch or I might paint out detail and simplify the image. This is the fun part but something I am challenged by as really my default setting is the playful, experimental stage where I can be free and can work loosely enjoying the edges of one colour next to another and delight in the subtlety of a mark or appreciate the layering of a broad brush stroke next to a lightweight spontaneous drip or dribble. Endless possibilities that I do not want to end.
New favourite beach. Wonderful rock formations and so many beautiful pebbles, each one so unique and inspiring. Jurassic and Triassic. Very photogenic and lots of ideas forming. Making drawing tools and using them to capture the scale and drama of the place.
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