Sunday, November 10, 2013

Colour Theory

On my journey to earning my Fine Art certificate are the proverbial "foundation" courses. The course I'm doing now is Foundation Colour or colour theory in disguise. I was looking forward to this course hoping it would be about mixing colour, applications of colour in different art media, and the psychology of colour. But it's really none of these. Our first class was about the "science" or the physics of colour. PHYSICS!!! Oh boy! I had no option to drop this course as it is a required course for the certificate, so I was stuck. The second class we learned about Itten's colour wheel and were taught how to draft it. DRAFT!!! Could this course get any worse? So I skipped the next couple of classes because I was overwhelmed. "I'll work on my project at home," was the excuse I gave my instructor.

The parameters of our project was to use Itten's colour wheel and incorporate complementary colours, split complementary, analogous, tetrads, and Bezold in specific parts of the wheel. The important element of this project was that it had to have a theme. A THEME?? How does a colour wheel have a theme? After showing us some exemplars from past projects, the creative energy started flowing. I finally decided on a Quilt Theme, as it seemed a natural fit since with quilting we incorporate colour, pattern, geometry, harmony, etc....all the components of this project.

The final work was to be produced on watercolour art board using gouache. Here is my Quilt Colour Wheel...



The elements are...centre - 6-pointed star; colour wheel elements - Dresden plate; internal corners - card trick; external corners - compass or star; edge design - spool.

It was interesting to see all the different colour wheels produced by my classmates when they were lined up on the board. Great work!







Next project is about values....and I'm sure I'll stress the same way with this project.

Sunday, May 12, 2013

Abstract Art

I recently started a new course at the local college. The course is Abstract Art. This is something different for me because realistic drawing and painting are something I am more comfortable with. Drawing/painting what I see with care and precision. Abstract art is something I've never quite understood...or liked. So this course is a challenge for me...to me...by me. This course will challenge my comfort zone and force me to step outside of it and try something different. I'm really looking forward to it!