The other day I was thinking about how I am so drawn to the red palette, both in my garden and in my art. I decided to challenge myself to work with the color I neglect the most - blue. I did this awhile back with black and white and now I use those colors all the time. On Friday, a package arrived with the most amazing blue beads. They positively leaped out of the box, glowing morning glory blue! I can't wait to work with them this week. I find this happeneing a lot lately. I keep pushing beyond the comfort zone and discover whole avenues to explore that I didn't even realize would appeal so much. Have you done this with other mediums or also with beading? I would love to hear about your experience.

Yes, I challenged myself once to work in black and white only. It was a B&W ATC swap. Since I'm absolutely goofy about color, I thought "ok, I'll try this, but I'm not going to like it.". But guess what? They turned out pretty nice, kind of elegant-looking. But I haven't done anything since then in B&W.

My color fixation for the past couple of years has been purple, bright spring green and canary yellow, with a tiny dash of red or pink sometimes. I thought it was a phase I was going through, but so far its sticking with me. I'm not complaining, of course, I really love the color combination.

Hi again, Black and white.....mmmm...you just reminded me I had a few thing planned for black and white. I LOVE your color combination: Purple, sprong green, canary yellow.....sounds wonderful!

 Having been primarily painting in sumie style the last several years, I find black and white immensely satisfying. Tones of gray can convey colors, blacks plus thickness and thinness of line are very exciting. (I find black & white photography exciting, too.)

In more traditional pictures (including abstracts), double-checking composition can be done so easily by viewing the picture in Photoshop and converting to Grayscale. That makes it easy to see "soft" spots in the composition... Then when you go back to Color for working on the pic, it's easier to choose and correct the color value. That's the modern-day equivalent of the old, tried and true method of making "value studies" first--except you don't have to do the "value study" first anymore! That is, it's easy to do if you have a scanner and your paint is dry.

Pat 

 

Pat W. Shafer:

 Having been primarily painting in sumie style the last several years, I find black and white immensely satisfying. Tones of gray can convey colors, blacks plus thickness and thinness of line are very exciting. (I find black & white photography exciting, too.)

In more traditional pictures (including abstracts), double-checking composition can be done so easily by viewing the picture in Photoshop and converting to Grayscale. That makes it easy to see "soft" spots in the composition... Then when you go back to Color for working on the pic, it's easier to choose and correct the color value. That's the modern-day equivalent of the old, tried and true method of making "value studies" first--except you don't have to do the "value study" first anymore! That is, it's easy to do if you have a scanner and your paint is dry.

Pat 

 

Pat, thanks for the pointer about testing with grayscale. Do you have some sumi paintings you could share with us?

My website, http://www.patwiley.com has one section of sumi-e paintings. Actually, my son took photos from my practice sheets (they aren't the ones I'd have chosen). He controlls that site and I cannot make changes or additions there. So I probably need to have my own blog or gallery here at Artella so I can show more current work.

Thanks for asking about this, Heather!

Pat 

WOW!

Pat, that is so lovely and soothing!

Oh my, Pat! Your sumi-e paintings are gorgeous! I especially like the one.... you guessed it! with the splash of color. The painting has a lot of movement, which I like. Yes, get your own blog and gallery! There's a lot of info about them that Zura, Bobby and Marney have posted about setting up blogs. Just go to the cafe home page and you'll find information about getting your own blog and gallery.

Thanks for sharing!

Thank you, Hayworth and Heather. I am so glad you like them!

Pat 

I also love the one with the light purple touches .

I'm a real color  bound person.

Meaning certain colors really speak to me .

I imagine it takes  extreme  precision  to  make those exacting  lines as you have .

They have such a great visual impact  .