A Bit Abstracted

Have you ever thought about how often polymer work is abstract? Many polymer artists who work in jewelry, wall art, and functional art do not work with recognizable imagery. Quite often polymer artists express themselves with little more than color, lines, forms, and textures. Technically, much of polymer art is decorative art due to so much of polymer craft being created in functional forms (decorative art being defined as functional as well as beautiful), but is there that great a difference between the intuitive arrangement of elements to create mood, impressions, and symbolic meaning in a piece of jewelry and that used in a painting on canvas? Well, no, there’s not, except in how we categorize it.

Unfortunately, that separate categorization, in my view, performs two disservices—it allows for a perceived difference in value (where art that is not functional, created just for art’s sake, is deemed more valuable) and creates a mystique around non-functional abstract art that makes us think we need to “understand” it, while nearly the same thing on a pendant can simply be admired. I find that sad. Why can’t just any piece of art be simply admired without looking for deeper meaning? Let’s look at just a few pieces that you can recognize as similar to familiar polymer work but is not, and use it as a back door to appreciating the inspiration that non-functional art can be for us “decorative” artists.

Abstracted Double-Takes

Take a look at the beautiful mixed media painting by Carol Nelson that opens this post. Can’t you see it as a lovely polymer pendant? Carol’s painting is cracked and textured and layered with metal foil. Is that not a familiar combination in polymer too? I think of the wonderfully crackled and painterly effects of Debbie Crothers’ work like this pendant below when rummaging through Carol’s portfolio.

If you are familiar with the polymer and metal jewelry of Susan Dyer, then this next painting might immediately bring to mind some of Susan’s well-known designs, of which there is one example below. The painting is Squares with Concentric Circles by Vassily Kandinsky.

These two pieces are so similar, you might think the jewelry was a direct translation of the painting but I would guess the designs came either quite independently or wholly unconsciously from the painting.

Much of polymer surface design is about abstract expression. We just immerse ourselves in the color, texture, marks, and mix of materials until we’ve manipulated it into a place that speaks to us. I know that is how I worked on abstract paintings when I had my short stint with those. I imagine that is not too different from what Christine Krainock was about when she created her painting Drifting Away, that you see below.

Now, doesn’t that remind you a bit of some lovely mokume created with translucent polymer and metal leaf, such as in this bracelet by Tatiana Parshikova? It’s a different material but has a similar feel, doesn’t it?  That painting would make a lovely bracelet if the painter was so inclined to make her work decorative art.

So, why isn’t our jewelry highly revered abstract works of art? In some arenas it is in its own way but being functional or wearable will likely always be separate from what is often referred to as “fine art”. It really doesn’t matter though. What does matter is that what we often do in polymer can be derived from much larger work hung on walls in museums and galleries. Also, if you’ve been stumped by abstract art but can appreciate the wide breadth of polymer art, you can apply your appreciation of the decorative to an appreciation of abstract paintings–the colors, textures, lines, etc. are used in a similar manner and often with similar goals.

So if you have time this week, maybe you can go to a museum or traipse through some galleries and try to imagine the pieces you see translated into polymer. You might find some amazing inspiration and ideas in work you just hadn’t considered in that way before.

VAB-ulous March

The next Virtual Art Box will be released at the end of the coming week and here’s a peek at the digital cover. Not only will we be exploring our passions, finding one’s unique artistic voice and, the wide world of mark making, I have a couple amazing discount offers for members as well. March is going to be a great month! Come join us if you haven’t already.

Shimmer and Shine

Also, if you haven’t seen the newsletter, I am presently taking submission ideas for tutorials for the next book, Shimmer & Shine Polymer Art Projects. You can get more details by going to this online version of the newsletter if you are interested in pitching an idea.

My apologies for any distracting typos this post. I’ve been a bit exhausted and my dyslexia, usually quite mild, is playing havoc with my proofreading skills. So, I’m off to just relax for a bit before I take up the reins on a busy first week of the month.

Have a beautiful first week of March!

The Contrast Conundrum

What would you say is the area of your craft that you most need to work on? Is it a skill that you want to acquire or improve? Is it simply getting yourself to do more work more often? (I know that’s one of mine!) Or is it some particular approach to the work that regularly seems to baffle you?

For me, I have always struggled with contrast. It’s not that I don’t like contrast, I just tend to like it done subtly. But if I am too subtle, the work lacks energy. On the other hand, if I consciously push it too far, it doesn’t feel like a genuine expression of mine. So, the idea of contrast is often on my mind when I am working.

First, let me correct a misconception that some people have. You do not have to have a high contrast in your work to create a good design. There can be little to no contrast in a piece and it can still have a beautiful design. Contrast is about the degree to which elements such as color, texture, pattern, shape, size, etc. are dissimilar or alike. Like anything else in design, good use of contrast comes down to making an intentional decision about how you will use it in your work.

For instance, high contrast tends to be high-energy and bold while moderate contrast comes across often as refined or restrained, and little to no contrast tends to be quiet and reserved. These descriptors are not always true because the level of contrast plays differently depending on what design element is being contrasted and how it works with (or against) other characteristics in the work.

Okay, enough jabbering on about these abstract concepts. Let’s look at some examples and get those little gears in your head turning as you ponder how you use contrast now, or how you would like to be using it.

Compare and Contrast

One of the most common ways to develop high contrast, especially in polymer, is with color. From canes to mokume to silkscreened veneers, high color contrast is the only way to have the effect of some techniques even show. But at the same time, minimal color contrast with little value change can result in lovely but subtle marbling, it helps support the dreamy feel of blended alcohol ink techniques, or allows us to showcase texture or form while color is relegated to a supporting role.

One of the most foolproof ways to use color for contrast is to go black and white. But if you go that extreme, you will probably need to heavily play up other design elements such as form, pattern, line, or texture. Or, you can put other colors into play.

That’s basically what Lynn Yuhr did with this earring and pendant set. The primary high contrast is a black border surrounding a white background. That’s simple enough, but then she throws a variety of colors in there, both warm and cool ones from across most of the color wheel. Then she goes for contrasting shapes by including both the softness of circles and the sharp angularity of triangles. Not only that, (this is really a piece all about high contrast!) she includes both solid shapes and thin lines. Some shapes are floating and unattached while others are overlapping, and some lines are solid while others are dashed. Often, this much variation can become chaotic and ungrounded but everything here has clean, defined and very graphic edges and she only chooses 2-3 variations of each design element. But the most grounding aspects are the black frame holding it all in and the swath of white being the common “floor” that this is all scattered on. It is energetic and yet contained, fun but still sophisticated. You can see, in the opening image, that she uses a similar approach but goes for full washes of color as the background, for slightly less dramatic contrast.

 

Have you ever been told to not wear plaid with polka dots at the same time? Well, you can if you play it right, pushing the contrast by adding even more pattern to your outfit so that is an obvious intentional choice. You’ll often find this approach in the work of Louise Fisher Cozzi. This necklace below has many different patterns. Some are very regular, while others are more organic. Most are rather busy but then there are those strings of solid pieces with nearly no pattern but for a slightly uneven glaze of color. Regardless of all these contrasting patterns, they have a connecting commonality in their circle form as well as being in a limited range of color saturation (pureness of color), giving what would otherwise be a cacophony of visual texture, a necessary cohesiveness. The result is a sophisticated kind of fun, sure to draw a bold, gregarious, and fun-loving buyer to this work.

 

Tactile texture can also be used as a contrasting mechanism in your design. An easy way to achieve contrast with texture is to have a smooth surface and a rough surface. It could be as simple as part of the work being highly polished and part of it sporting a matte finish. You can create textural contrast without going for the smooth versus rough by having two types of rough surfaces. That still contrasts if a bit more subtle.

The gorgeous Jenny Reeves earrings below, a metal, rather than polymer example (although there are plenty of folks who do similar texturing in polymer) has plenty of contrast although it does not jump out at you. The matte silver on the sides of each circle contrasts with the rough reticulated metal but not jarringly so. The matte finished silver moves to rough silver moves to rough gold so that there is only one level of change between each of those three treated sections of the circles. This somewhat gradual change diminishes the impact of the contrast resulting in a softer feel. Imagine how this would have looked if it went from matte silver to rough gold without the transitional section? It would have a very different feel.

As I mentioned, going for low contrast has its place and advantages. Dorota Kaszczyszyn doesn’t generally go for high contrast, but that is probably because she focuses primarily on her imagery and creating the forms and textures to bring her fantastical adornment to life, as is evident in her Water Dragon necklace here.

It’s not that contrast doesn’t exist in this piece – there is certainly contrast in texture, especially on the wings, going from a dimpled cap to a feathery brush below. However, all the surfaces have some kind of hand tooled texture, minimizing the contrast in that regard. The colors also have a minimal contrast, going from silver to a similarly shimmery brush of color using an interference green/purple powder, a color scheme echoed even in the focal shell on the dragon’s back. This low contrast gives the necklace, and her creature, a quiet grandeur, but it is not bereft of energy, instilled with a light but rippling liveliness through the texture and the flow of the shapes.

 

A Contrasting Evaluation

If, after seeing the ways you can work with contrast, you feel inclined to play with the way you use this design element, you can do so with some simple exercises.

Color is pretty easy to start with. Starting with a color combination you commonly use or tend towards, replace each color with the same hue but choose colors that are much darker, brighter, lighter, or subdued than the other colors. You will want the colors to have at least one characteristic in common (like they could all be very saturated or all be very light or they could all have a bit of black added to them) to keep the combination cohesive. You could also simply take out a bunch of blocks of clay and create several color pallets by shuffling them around – one high contrast, one meeting contrast in one low contrast. See which one you like the best.

If you want to better understand your options in color, grab Maggie Maggio and Lindly Haunani’s Color Inspiration book, or for a more condensed overview, grab your copy or get the Summer 2017 issue of The Polymer Arts which is all about Color! (We still have that 33% off 3 or more magazines sale going on and you don’t need a promo code for it now.)

You also can do a self-evaluation by grabbing a few of your favorite pieces, as well as a few pieces that weren’t successful, and looking at the difference in contrasts in the following areas:

  • Color
  • Texture
  • Shape/form
  • Size of forms or motifs
  • Pattern

See if you can identify where contrast worked well in the successful pieces and maybe where it could have been improved in the less successful ones by simply imagining increasing or decreasing contrast in each of the design elements listed above.

If you’re one of those who likes to make lists, copy these five design items out onto a piece of paper (or into an Excel sheet if you like those) and for each piece you have, identify whether the contrast is low, medium, or high for each design element. Then if you look at your evaluation list, you may find that you always have low contrasting color or high contrast in pattern, or vice versa or that, in general, you don’t work in high contrast or you never try low contrast. Whatever you’re not seeing a lot of, try to consciously create designs that push you out of your comfort zone.

Now, as I mentioned at the beginning, I don’t like to push high contrast in my work so it may seem funny for me to ask you to do something that goes against your norm, but I was only able to determine my preference because I did exercises like this. Push yourself like this can really help you discover a lot about yourself as an artist.

But if you’re more of the low-key, intuitive type, just keep contrast in mind next time you’re at the studio table. Like any design consideration, your work can be improved simply by being aware of whether you are making conscious decisions about design. If you are now more aware of contrast, you may find you’re able to more easily identify why a piece may not be working by checking the contrast and asking yourself whether low or high contrast or something in the middle would best serve what you’re trying to express or the type piece you are trying to create.

From Behind the Scenes

On that note, I am going to go work on the contrast that exists in my life between having a normal living situation and figuring out how to work and live in the beginnings of a halfway gutted house. But I always like a challenge!

I almost have my makeshift outdoor kitchen ready! Grill cleaned and ready for action. Check. Camp stove hooked up to grill size propane tank. Check. Camp table/sink with an actual running faucet via my garden hose set up. Check. Yep … no crazy construction is going to keep me from my creative cooking!

Now I just need to make covers/cozies for my instant pot and my non-polymer countertop oven so they can sit outside more or less protected from the elements. Then … I need to clear space in the studio for the refrigerator. I have always said that one’s studio or office should be as far away from the refrigerator as possible to discourage unintentional grazing so I’m seriously breaking my own rules here! Didn’t I just say I like a challenge? Maybe I should have clarified how much of a challenge I like. *sigh*

I’ll be juggling all this while I am in the midst of polishing up the next issue of The Polymer Studio but have thus far been able to stay more or less on schedule. Just don’t miss out on this next issue!

Issue number two of The Polymer Studio has a wonderful collection of projects for you as well as a tour of Christine Dumont’s studio (so exciting!), an interview with the uniquely creative Cynthia Tinapple, stencil explorations with Debbie Crothers and much more! We would love for you to join us in The Polymer Studio… Just subscribe to get your plethora of polymer fun and inspiration. Your subscription also supports this blog and all the polymer obsessed artists that have helped to create the beautiful content of our publications.

Thank you for your continued support! Enjoy the rest of your Sunday and have a creative and inspiring week!

 

 

 

Man-made Handmade

Have you noticed that most people who work in polymer will cite nature as their primary inspiration? Do you, or would you, too? But isn’t it ironic that, as inspired as we are by nature, we work with a wholly man-made material? I’ve been thinking about this because, as I polished up the Polymer Journeys 2019 book, I was making notes on some of the trends and I noticed that all but three people who cited their inspiration said they were inspired by nature. It got me to thinking about why we aren’t more inspired by the man-made world, as rich and diverse as it is.

My curiosity piqued, I did some research and made more notes to see if, for one, my perception was correct in that polymer artists look to nature more than anything and, secondly, to see what things other than nature inspire people. So, the observations that inspiration from nature is predominant in polymer art was upheld by all I looked through. I also found it interesting that, when it boils down to it, nearly everything in almost all art forms looks to be inspired by nature or by man-made styles and designs that themselves were inspired by nature. To see examples of where nature is inspiration for man-made design, just take a look at styles such as Baroque or Art Deco. Flowers, trees, leaves, vines, butterflies, birds, and a myriad of other natural flora and fauna are evident sources of inspiration in the forms and lines of those styles. We might be inspired by the designs of that age but the inspiration is still rooted in nature.

However, I did my best to find pieces that were inspired by man-made objects, scenes, or styles. Let me tell you, it was not terribly easy but just because it is less often turned to does not mean it doesn’t have wonderful forms, colors, motifs, and textures for all of us. Let’s take a look at some of the work created by polymer artists who are inspired by the man-made.

A Gallery of Man-made Inspiration

One of the first people who came to mind when thinking about man-made inspiration was Cornelia Brockstedt. She has had several series such as “Street Life” and her “City” bangles. She also did a series of what she called “graphical studies” in 2015. So I went to her Flickr photo stream to find something to share with you and it struck me that, even with the graphical tendencies and inspiration taken from city life, there is so much organic that shows up in her work. This tended to be true with a lot of artists. This pendant, one of my favorite pieces of hers, was inspired by sidewalks and the grass that grows up from around it. So it was inspired by man-made walkways but with contrast in the nature that is still sneaking in.

 

Another artist who came to mind, even before I started my search, was Sona Grigoryan.  She did a lovely series of polymer and resin pieces inspired by the Barcelona cathedrals and stained-glass windows she sees where she lives.

 

And of course, we have to consider the work of the Georg Dinkel who is inspired by architecture and machinery to the extent that even when he decides to create some creatures, they too look mechanical. He is also, apparently, inspired by literature and humor, as this Don Quixote scene he set up with two of his mechanized creatures hints at.

 

And, when talking mechanical, we certainly can’t ignore the influence of the mechanical from movements like steampunk. From jewelry to sculpture to journals and phone cases, this style is everywhere but it’s hard to say whether polymer found steampunk or steampunk found polymer first. The steampunk monster heart that opened this post is a sculpture by Kimberly Hart who posts under MonsterKookies on Etsy.

Carol Blackburn, whose work is so colorful and graphic, often cites fashion styles and movements as her source of inspiration. I think these fall under her “Missoni” fashion inspired line.

 

Another artist who seems quite enamored of fabric but also of metal and other man-made textures is Nikolina Otrzan. Mostly, she’s just a texture fiend but you’ll notice that her textures generally have a certain uniformity to them that automatically makes them feel that they would be man-made in origin, whether they were intended to or not. Even her shapes, like these tube pieces, reflect a penchant for uniformity that is beautifully balanced with her choice of rough or edge softening surface treatments.

 

So has this got you pondering the possibilities of man-made forms and textures as a source of inspiration for you? I know I’ve been looking at the shapes in my house, the walls in the neighborhood, and the forms on the buildings I pass with new eyes.

Going for Man-made

Freebies

If you want to try a few man-made inspired textures or forms, there are quite a few out there although the quick and free were a bit more scarce. Nonetheless, here are a few pages with related free tutorials. You’ll want to pop the last two URLs into Google translate if it doesn’t automatically translate for you:

Tutorial Shops

Your best sources of tutorial with man-made inspiration are going to cost a couple of bucks, but are well worth it. Here are some of my favorite shops for this:

 

A Bit o’ News

And now for a few tidbits about things going on in the polymer community you might want to know about:

Vote for the 2018 International Polymer Clay Awards!

The International Polymer Clay Association member voting is now open through March 8. Active members should have received an email with a link for your ballot. If your membership has expired please renew at www.theipca.org before March 8, 2019 so that you may vote for your favorites.

Dan Cormier and Tracy Holmes Online Courses

Dan and Tracy have recently announced the lineup for their 2019 online Master Classes. Check out the present information and sign up for future announcements on their website here.

Polymer Journeys 2019 has been released!
  • Our latest publication, the second installment of the Polymer Journeys retrospective series was released this morning in digital format for those who purchased early or otherwise supported the project. (It was noon PST time if you need to search your inbox or your spam folder if not there.)
  • Print Pre-orders (ordered prior to Feb 27th) will go into the mail a little later than we had hoped but will be shipped directly from the printer on March 6. Our shipment should be our doorstep March 8, so newer orders will ship out as soon as we have them in our hot little hands. Buy yours here if you haven’t yet. (We’ve already sold half our print run so don’t wait too long!)
  • BOGO Half Off! We’ve added special package pricing for the new book … Purchase both the 2016 and 2019 edition of Polymer Journeys with half off the 2016 book, or get both the print and digital edition of the new 2019 book with half off the digital. No promo code needed. Packages available here when you click on the Polymer Journeys book cover here.
  • The Polymer Arts Collection on sale for HALF off! Purchases the whole collection of The Polymer Arts and get HALF off  the entire package – all 29 Digital issues or the 23 Print issues we still have available. If you want to collect them, now would be the time!

Until next week, have an inspired and creative Sunday and upcoming week!

Creating Uncommon Mokume

January 27, 2019

Question for you … how much do you know about the origination of mokume gane? I’m guessing you have heard it has something to do with swords but did you know that the original metal technique was a lost art until quite recently? And did you know that what we do with polymer today has virtually nothing in common with the original technique? Mokume’s history and our adaptation of it has quite a few surprises in it, many of which could really open your eyes to its possibilities.

To understand how to create great mokume in polymer, it really does help to know a bit about where it came from, not to mention that its history is a great story of fortune, loss and redemption! Or something akin to that. Here are a few statements about its history. See if you can identify which statements are a true part of its tumultuous history and which are just fantastic claims:

  1. Mokume was a sword making technique that required folding metal over and over to give the blade’s edge a rippled appearance, like wood grain.
  2. The technique was developed for purely decorative purposes.
  3. It was originally used almost exclusively to create samurai swords to be carried around as status symbols.
  4. The technique became nearly extinct due to samurai swords becoming illegal to carry in Japan in the 19th century.
  5. The technique was resurrected by a female Japanese metalsmith when she started teaching it in the US in the 1970s.

Ok, so as you might have guessed, all these statements are true! But how does knowing this help? Well, the history may be more about appreciating it’s path to polymer but how it is created in metal can help you understand how our version of it works and what you can do with it.

Here … just take a look at one of the ways it is used in metalsmithing today. You can see in the phases of making a mokume ring, just how a mokume billet (that’s what metalsmith’s call a block of metal) is layered, twisted, pounded and bent into a ring. I never would have guessed that my mokume wedding band was created in this way considering how we approach it with polymer.

Now, what if you did the exact same thing with polymer? You could build a block, cut it, twist it, open it up and form it into a dimensional ring. Or bead. Or flattened donut. Or just a long bar bead, already patterned on all sides. Do you see how knowing the origin and how else it has been used can help you see the possibilities in polymer?

Neither the decorative sword nor the above metalsmithing approach sounds or looks anything like what we do in polymer though, does it? We don’t twist or even fold polymer mokume, it rarely looks like wood grain, and it certainly isn’t going to behave (or be as hard to work with) as steel and yet, we call it mokume. Now, how did that happen?

Like most borrowed techniques, what most of us have come to think  of as polymer mokume evolved from an attempt to emulate it so it is not just some kind of translation of the technique. Slicing polymer “billets” (it’s too cool a word not to borrow too!) emulated grinding down the metal edge of a sword to reveal the visual drama of its layers. But because polymer can be manipulated in so many other ways, and because artists are a curious and exploratory lot, the technique, along with the clay, was also manipulated. This happened over and over until we ended up with the many variations we have today and even those often have little in common but the layering and the slicing.

Creating Uncommon Mokume in Your Studio

Has this started to get you thinking a bit differently about mokume? If it hasn’t let me just nudge you a bit more.

Consider this. With polymer, versus metal, we can:

  • Work in a vast and myriad array of colors.
  • Add translucent layers.
  • Include inclusions in those layers.
  • Cover the surface of layers with metal leaf, gilder’s paste, image transfers, or paint.
  • Cut down through the billet to create lines and shapes.
  • Use mica clays to create mica shift, an effect that adds color gradations and dimension around cuts and impressions.
  • Create any kind of patterning we like, from loose and organic to very regular and controlled.

How many of these methods have you tried?

Uncommon Mokume Examples

Opening this post is a necklace by Carole Aubourg’s (aka Cacofim’) that can teach us a bit about mixing and matching patterns and letting background and foreground play together. She uses mokume in balance with the other, similarly slice-dependent techniques that appear, putting the focus on the design rather than on any one pattern or technique. Then the slices don’t always cover their beads, letting the background come through. There is a lot going on here but the variety of patterns are all brought together by a cohesive color palette that all parts partake of.

Here are some splendid green and cream dimensional beads by Eugena Topina that speak to how you can control of the slices. The mokume is created with high contrast colors and a prominent pattern that is sliced to a very even depth to keep the pattern whole. She then echos the pattern on the reverse side with carving. (And lucky us … she sells a project tutorial for this necklace here for a mere $13! Go get one if you are at all intrigued.)

I don’t want to discount what metalsmiths are doing with mokume these days  either. So, no, this stylized heart pendant is not polymer but don’t you love how fine and close the mokume marks/impressions are? And why not go dense with the patterning? I have not the faintest idea how Juha Koskela created this in silver but if metalsmiths are getting wild with color in metals, I have to at least wonder a little bit if metal techniques, which have long influenced our work, might now be getting inspiration from polymer. I do like that idea, don’t you?

So, here’s another question … are you a mokume making fan and have you pushed what you know about the technique? If you have, why not share? Send links of your work in the comments below (click here if you are reading this in an email) so we can all see your work. I know I’d love to see it!

 

THINGS TO LOOK FORWARD TO:

Here are a few bits of general polymer news you might find of interest!

  • This Tuesday is the near legendary half off sale at Munro Crafts. Check it out and stock up!
  • Maggie Maggio and Lindly Haunani are teaching together for a 6 day spree of creativity and color, July 8th-13th. This is also partly a celebration of their highly influential book, Color Inspirations. If you like color (and who doesn’t?) and you can squeeze this into your schedule and budget, it’s a must.
  • Deadline for submitting to the IPCA Awards is in just a few days. Apply here!

 

Do you have feedback for me?

Tell me what you think of this new format and blog. I wanted to put some more meat into it but you tell me … is it too long or did you enjoy getting lost in the history and ideas? If you liked it, just drop a quick “Works for me!” or “Keep it up” in the comments below (click here if you are reading this in an email then scroll down on the page that pops up.)

If you have ways I could change or otherwise improve the new blog format, just send a short “Shorter!” or “More pics, less text.” or “More instruction than history” or whatever in the comments below (click here if you are reading this in an email). I can’t please everyone but I really want this to be as useful and inspiring as it can be so help me make this what you want and hope for!

– Sage

All Puffed Up

January 9, 2019

Looking over Elise Winter’s work on Monday got me thinking about pillow shapes. It’s amazing what a little dimension put into a jewelry element can do for a piece.

This pendant and earring set by Laure Steele of France is a simple but multidimensional example of a puffed-up trillion shape that has also been depressed in the center for a bit of ride along the beautifully created canes. If I understand the translations correctly, Laure learned or made these canes in a Carol Simmons master class. It’s amazing what a class can do for your skills and how it can reshape (pun intended!) the direction of your work.

See more by Laure—much which is not polymer as she also seems to enjoy working in metal and glass quite a bit—on her website and on Instagram.

Embellished Hearts

December 28, 2018

Now that I am safely ensconced at my sister’s house in Colorado I’ve been catching up on some social media, seeing what other people have been up to this week. I ran across Ron Lehocky’s Facebook page and although I was quite taken by his fabulous “ribbon wrapped” Christmas hearts but I found I most wanted to share these beaded bezel versions of Ron’s hearts created by expert beader Marcia Antle from Atlanta, Georgia, that Ron posted last month.

This is such an excellent pairing of mediums—not that polymer cabochons and beaded bezels are a new thing—but Ron’s hearts are already a collaborative endeavor as he takes scrap canes and surface-treated clay sent to him by other artists to create the majority of his hearts. Then to have a skilled bead artist continue the collaboration with this type of bezel work gives these pendants an unusual richness in their story and creative cooperation.  They have a feel-good quality that just fits the season

As you consider your goals and projects for the coming year, perhaps this type of thing will get you thinking about collaboration or mixing mediums. I have a feeling 2019 will be the year of leaps and bounds in mixing or crossing mediums with polymer clay. I know so many people with plans of that sort. It makes you very excited to see what 2019 has to bring.

Don’t forget to jump over to Ron Lehocky’s Facebook page to see the posts of these hearts and his other holiday centric pieces, if you’re not too tired of Christmas motifs and scroll down to November 28th to see more of Marcia’s beaded hearts.

 

Shimmer and Swirl

December 21, 2018

This bit of drama in silver is not, of course, polymer, but just look at the textures and possibilities!

The drama comes from the swirling motion initiated by the ammonite shell but this artist team, Sergey Toritsyn and Svetlana Larina, selling under the shop Art-Dreams on Livemaster, have ramped up the energy with a variety of textures and lines that move off the central body of the work. The bezeled stones help to put the brakes on this just enough to keep it in the barely contained state but that just adds to the beauty and satisfying feeling of the movement in the piece. The shimmer of the ammonite interior also helps to anchor our eyes towards the center so that our eyes wander from the sparkle and shimmer to the swirling wire to the stones and back to center again.

The piece is a great example of well-composed movement in jewelry as well as being an intriguing piece to just visually investigate. From the lined-up granulation in the center to the bits of color under the wires near the base of where most of them start (enamel, I think), there is just a ton of detail to take in and admire.

This is the most complex piece of theirs that I found but they have plenty of other work to admire on their Livemaster page here.

Off-Center Blue

December 3, 2018

I seem to be in a blue mood. Not blue as in sad but rather, I’ve been picking out a lot of blue artwork lately and with yesterday being the first day of Hanukkah, blue seems to be the color of the week so I’m going with that as a theme.

This first piece from an artist in the Czech Republic who goes only by the name of Hira in her shop on Fler.cz. Hira is quite the exploratory artisan. There are numerous styles and techniques in the work displayed in the shop. You can see the influence of many different artists, such as the Melanie West style cane seen here, but there are sincere efforts to design with the artist’s unique aesthetic.

Bright, deep blue on black is always a dramatic pairing but with the added bright green moving into yellow in this cane, we have a fairly energetic piece even though the color palette is limited. Then there are the yummy tactile textures adding a bit of background buzz to the high energy feel of this piece.

You really should take a look at Hira’s shop and the variety of work she does. There is careful attention paid to the finish regardless of the style and there is a satisfying balance in most all the pieces. Hira also knits! So go ahead and take some time out to check out the work.

Color Pendulums

November 28, 2018

Sarah Shriver is well known for her caning, so it is fun to see what she does when she branches out from canes.

These pendulum pendants put a spotlight on Sarah’s focus on color. It is a very different look and feel for her but if you look at the forms, she is still working in similar shapes but without the canes. There looks to be more freedom of form for her. Her canes are generally laid on flat or slightly domed surfaces whereas here, the forms bulge out from their silver bindings, washed with color around the edges to accentuate that roundness in the shapes.

The design may seem simple at first until you consider the components. There is a definite contrast going on here that may be hard to identify at first. The roundness and gradient wash of color are soft elements but the bulk terminating in an arrow-like point that drives inexorably downward gives them a definite boldness. This combination is at the root of the sophisticated feel of these uncluttered designs.

It looks like she has worked on these designs for about a year. You can see her progress and some of her other designs and work on her Instagram page and on her website. And if you are in Northern California next week, consider dropping by her open house in San Rafael on December 9.

A Variety Show

January 24, 2021
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Last weekend I talked about contrast, a concept closely related to variety, which is the subject for this week. Understanding the difference between the two can avoid a lot of confusion so I’ll be referring to contrast a bit today as well. If you didn’t see the last post, give it a quick read here.

Now, what is variation?

Variation is the range or assortment of differences throughout a design. Now, didn’t contrast also speak to differences? Yes, but those differences were between similar types of elements while variation is the degree of difference between all of the elements, principles, and placement choices in your work. It is like contrast in that variation is also used to create interest or energy or to otherwise support your intention, however, while contrast is often the key to adjusting the level of variation, you can have a fair bit of variation with little or no contrast.

To put it succinctly, contrast is the difference between two or more related elements while variety is about the relationship between all the elements in a piece. So, let’s talk about those relationships and how they are used in design.

 

Picturing Variation

First of all, keep in mind that you can create variation with elements or principles or pretty much any visual or conceptual part of your work.

Take the gorgeous pendant that opened this post. Liz Sabol has variation in color, line, balance, repetition, rhythm and even types of composition. In fact, even though we can identify a use of the Rule of Thirds, a Golden Spiral, and use of the Focus to the Right principle, it’s the barely-there nod to centered composition, created by an implied line from the midpoint focused, and yet asymmetrical, balance of the bail to the centered tip at the bottom of the pendant, that is holding all the chaos at bay. This piece is an absolute celebration of variation.

Alternately, if you use a lot of the same elements or employ principles in the same way throughout a piece, then there would be little variation. You can see that in this simple but still striking little pendant by an undisclosed creative on VK.com. (If you know who made this, do let me know and I’ll update the post.) Here there is regular rhythm, an absolutely centered composition, and every shape is circular. The only variation is created by contrast in the value difference between the black and white and the textural difference between the smooth outer elements and the rough interior disc.

Now, looking at the two pendants, I’m sure you can see that there is a huge difference between the energy and feel of them, largely because of the level of variation.

 

It’s a Matter of Degrees

So, as you see, a piece can be interesting with little to no variation or contrast. These concepts add points and degrees of interest. It’s your intention that should determine what role they will play in your work.

Just think, if you want a piece to feel solemn and quiet, avoiding high contrast and keeping your variation quite subtle may be what you need. That calm could be very awe-inspiring in its subtlety. Alternately, you can have a piece with the points of contrast and variation ranging from subtle to obvious.

You see an example of moderation in contrast and variation in Amy Genser’s Eventide pictured here. Yes, the piece feels quite busy and has a lot of energy but the contrast and variation are not that dramatic. There’s a lot of texture but it’s all rough and predominantly created from the rolled-up paper elements. The rolled paper elements are all ovoid in shape but with variation in regard to the roundness and width. They also range in size and are very in color although, like the rest of the canvas, they are predominantly blue and cyan, keeping to the cool side of the color wheel. The canvas does open up into a brief mix of reds and yellows in the middle and the color values do range from a dark blue to white. But the variation is applied in a gradual and moderated way. Most of the energy comes from the texture, the repetition, and the sense of movement.

So, we see here that the degree of variation doesn’t have to be high to create energy or interest as other elements and principles can do that quite well. However, I do think in this case that the level of variation included boosts the energy of the texture and repetition. It’s a team effort.

So, unlike some other concepts, there is no way to really list the different types or degrees of contrast and variation and what they might mean for your particular piece. As you’ve seen, this is in large part due to how much these concepts depend on, and play off of, the other choices made in the design.

 

This is only a quick introduction to the subjects of contrast and variation but I’ll continue talking about them in many of my future posts. If you think about it, I’ve actually been talking about these ideas throughout the year as the differences in your choices for the various elements and principles is quite wrapped up in your decisions on how you’ll employ contrast and variation.

Some of your choices for contrast and variation will be made automatically if you make characteristic choices for your elements before specifically thinking about contrast or variation, like choosing just daisies for a flower necklace or choosing green and red as your color palette because it’s for Christmas. Repeated daisies will dictate rather low levels of variation because of the sameness of the primary motif so you’d have to work with contrast in things like value and size to take it up a notch. And Christmas colors are high contrast so it would be difficult to make the work also feel calm or serene starting from that color palette.

However, you might find it more advantageous to make choices about the degree of contrast and variation that would best suit the work and then make that happen through the characteristics you choose for your elements. In fact, knowing the degree of contrast and variation you want can help you make more confident and intentional choices for your elements, various principles, and composition. That’s how influential the concept of contrast and variation is in art.

 

Perhaps this talk of contrast and variety will get you jazzed to try out some variations on variety your own self. So, while the sun is shining and the muse is calling, do try to have a wonderful, safe, and creative week!

 

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Hot or Not

August 16, 2020
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Does this colorful necklace by Camille Young have a predominantly warm or cool color palette? Or neither? Read on and then determine it for yourself. I’ll confirm the answer shortly.

How goes your color mixing adventures? My adventures have been less about color and more about traversing the landscape of grief my sister is dealing with as well as the landscape of Colorado and I tried to return home this past week. Plans to leave the Denver area through the usual I-70 corridor went up in smoke as fires shut down my usual path through the Rockies. This forced me to take a southerly and slightly longer route which turned out to be, strangely enough, just what I needed. I went through some gorgeous country I’d not visited in a while and it was an absolute boon to the soul. I stopped and savored and took it all in.

I’m hoping your color mixing adventures have been similar in that you may have ended up going in directions you didn’t plan but found some wonderful new colors to work with. Since we oftentimes return to the same preferred palettes, favorite pre-mixed colors, or comfortable combinations over and over again, the discovery of new colors and new combinations often has to be purposefully sought after. However, color mixing explorations can often result in the discovery of enticing new colors which can also push you to try new combinations. But the question then becomes, how do you determine what colors go with your new found color finds?

You may think I’m leading into a discussion about color palettes and, originally, that’s what I was going to do but as I wrote this article, I realized that, in the chaos of this last month, I neglected to write the article about one last set of terms you’ll need before we can jump full on into creating intentional color palettes. It’s a simple concept that can really inform contrast and the relationships in your color palettes and can be a great place to start when choosing color combinations. It’s the concept of color temperatures.

 

Warm or Cool

So, just what is color temperature? Well, colors actually appear either cool or warm to us, so much so that being in a room painted in a cool color will literally feel much cooler than one painted in a warm color even if they are the exact same temperature.

Warm colors are those that represent fire, heat, sunshine, and other hot and warm things. So, of course, red, orange, and yellow are warm but so are magenta and yellow-green. They just happen to be on the edge of the warm range. The warm colors are also all on one half of the color wheel, right? So that’s the one half of the color wheel that feels warm to us.

Cool colors are those that we associate with ice, water, shade, and other cool and refreshing things. These would include violet, blue, cyan, and green. And, as you will note, those are all on the other side of the color wheel, the cool half.

Now, why is temperature in color important? Well, warm colors and cool colors not only have us react to the associated temperature but they also act different visually. Warm colors advance while cool hues recede. Warm colors also have a lot more energy visually than cool colors which is one of the reasons they pop out at us so readily.

Take a look at this pendant by Dan Cormier. What pops out at you first? Red, right? It doesn’t take much since red is so high energy and it visually advances. (Dan will be releasing a self-study online course for the techniques used in this pendant next month. Sign up on his website to get in on it here.)

You might have noticed that red in particular is often used in the form of a dot, slash, or other very small accent of color to draw the eye and create contrast. The warm temperature, the color’s high energy, and the way that color comes visually forward allows for it to be used in a very small amount while still drawing a tremendous amount of attention. In addition, you might also note that these red accents are usually a dark red and rarely a pale red because darker colors also advance so being red as well as a deep rich version makes for quite the attention getter.

On the other hand, blues are quite commonly used in large swaths and as backgrounds due to how much they recede, our association with the vastness of the blue sky, and blue’s relatively low and calming energy can then be contrasted with higher energy in the foreground or in images or marks an artist would like to advance visually.

Warm and cool color categories also have an emotive and psychological tendency in the same way individual colors do. Predominantly warm color palettes will be associated with heightened emotions and energy while cool color palettes will feel relatively relaxed, calm, or refreshing.

Although cool colors have a calmer energy, they are not without vitality. Violet and green combinations, such as the one seen here in this piece by Cecilia Button (Mabcrea), are well-loved and don’t lack energy due to the contrast between them—they are on the far ends of the cool color half of the color wheel. So instead of cool and calm, this color combination is more cool and refreshing with added energy from the lines and texture. It’s also a split complimentary combination if you recall what that is from the Color relationship post.

Although cool colors have a calmer energy, they are not without vitality. Violet and green combinations, such as the one seen here in this piece by Cecilia Button (Mabcrea), are well-loved and don’t lack energy due to the contrast between them—they are on the far ends of the cool color half of the color wheel. So instead of cool and calm, this color combination is more cool and refreshing with added energy from the lines and texture. It’s also a split complimentary combination if you recall what that is from the Color relationship post.

Look around you at the color schemes in various decorated objects, photos, artwork, etc. Try to identify the dominant temperature of the color schemes, if there is one. There are times that the color scheme is neither predominantly cool nor warm. There are other times where they are simply hard to identify due to the range of color, like in the opening piece. That is predominantly warm, by the way. The cool colors are not as abundant and work more as calming accents in a piece that is busy and bright and could use a few visual “brakes”.

Another area that can be hard to read the color temperature of is with metallics. If something is predominately gold or copper, is that warm or cool? If you think in terms of their key hue, you’d recognize that those are warm colored metals since the underlying hues are yellow and orange. How about silver? Most people would say that silver has a cool color temperature but, in reality, silver is a gray and, gray can go either way.

 

Temperature Bias?

Which brings us to the brief discussion of color temperature in terms of color bias. I think I mentioned, in the July 12th post on color bias, that some people have learned color bias using the terms of cool and warm. In other words, a red could be a cool red or a warm red but that simply means that that the red leans towards magenta (moving closer to the cool side of the color wheel) or towards orange (leaning and staying within the warm side of the color wheel.) I think the use of the cool/warm terms for color bias causes too much useless mental gymnastics (telling yourself things like “the red leans towards orange, orange is a warm color, therefore the red is a warm red”) when we can simply identify which color it leans towards, giving us the precise information we need to both color mix and color match.

However, the terms are useful when talking about grays. Since gray represents an absence of saturation and the complete absence of saturation theoretically means the complete absence of hue, you wouldn’t think that a gray would have a color bias. But in the real world, most grays do have a color bias (as do most whites actually) but it’s much harder to identify a specific hue with so much color information missing. So, it’s a lot simpler, and just as informative, to say a gray is warm or cool. Put a gray next to your color wheel and see if the undertone of that gray matches more of the warm colors or more of the cool colors. If the gray has a blue, violet, or even green undertone, it’s a cool gray. If it seems to have a bit of red or orange, anything leaning towards brown, then it is a warm gray.

And yes, it is important to know if it gray is warm or cool, just as it is with any other color, because that can help you match up a color palette by intentionally picking similarities or contrasting differences between colors and grays based on their color characteristics. I don’t suggest you bother with temperature for whites because, to be honest, most whites in artist’s materials are a pretty good pure white or become warm (yellowing) plus they are heavily influenced by reflected color coming from surrounding surfaces so they can appear warm in one setting and cool in another. If you are picking wall paint, however, warm versus cool whites can really change the feel of a room. But that’s a whole other can of worms (or paint!)

So, now, I hope you will start looking at color combinations in terms of the warm/cool relationship. This is a really easy way to start thinking about color relationships which is the basis of creating color palettes and you are just looking at one aspect for now. The whole process of developing color palettes will rely on all the information that you read up to this point so I’m going easy on you this week!

If you’re feeling a little out of the loop because you haven’t caught up in all the posts, or if you feel like you are starting to forget some of the terminology we talked about early on, take this next week to catch up or refresh your understanding of color terminology because when we get into palettes next week, it’s going to be all about identifying characteristics by the terminology I’ve been giving you. I know it doesn’t sound particularly sexy or exciting, using terminology to determine color, but once you get the hang of it, you will be amazed at how easy it will be for you to successfully combine colors in beautiful ways that also support your intentions.

Here’s a quick review of terminology you will want to be sure to know as we move forward into developing color palettes:

  • Hue–the name of the pure, key color under which we categorize all colors like it. This breaks up the full spectrum of color into a manageable set of names we can use to describe colors. If you think of colors in terms of 3 primaries, 3 secondaries, and their 6 tertiary hues, you will have 12 hues to categorize under.
  • Value—how light or dark a color is.
  • Saturation—how pure and bright a color is.
  • Shade—the addition of black that darkens a color.
  • Tint—the addition of white that lightens a color.
  • Tone—the addition of a complementary color or gray that neutralizes or tones down a color.
  • Color bias—the primary or secondary color on the color wheel that a pigment color leans towards if not an absolute hue.
  • Temperature—the sense of warmth or coolness in a color or color combination.
  • Complementary — colors that are opposite each other on the color wheel.
  • Analogous — colors that are next to or near each other on the color wheel.
  • Split Complementary — colors that are one step over on the color wheel from a color’s direct complement.

 

Does that all sound familiar? If not, re-read the posts for June, July, and August as a refresher if you have the time. Otherwise, I would suggest spending this week playing with color mixing some more and identifying colors that are warm versus cool as well as warm and cool color palettes, especially in decorative objects, patterned fabrics, intentionally designed rooms, etc. And, of course, create! Color is only one part of designing and creating, albeit a really wonderful part! But more important than learning the stuff is actually doing the work, creating from your heart and the essence of your being.

My essence will continue to rest up and recover and dream of more time in the mountains. It was so great to be out just hiking, taking photos, chatting it up with a friendly marmot or campsite cow (yes, my campsite had a herd of black cows and calves handing around), and falling asleep to a view of a zillion of stars out the back window of my yet-to-be-fully-converted camper van. Refueling the soul is much needed for us all right now, isn’t it?

Do get out among the trees or put your toes in the sand, or just drive and get a fresh view of the world if you can. You’ll gather color and design inspiration wherever you go. Times may be hard but the world is still an amazingly beautiful place.

 

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So Much Color Bias

July 12, 2020
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Have you ever tried to mix a color that seemed really straightforward, like mixing blue and yellow to make a nice green or blue and red to make a nice purple but it came out a bit muddy? It happens a lot with pigment-based art materials and the reason for this is something called color bias. Sounds kind of scientific, maybe even intimidating but it’s actually a very simple concept. Simple but exceedingly important. It may even be the most important concept to understand when it comes to mixing pigment-based art mediums.

So, what is color bias? It is a characteristic seen in a not quite exact hue that tells us what other hue it leans towards. In other words, you can call a particular color a yellow but if it is not a true yellow, the color bias characteristic identifies whether that yellow has a touch of cyan in it or a touch of magenta, because if it’s not just yellow then it’s going to have at least a touch of another primary, leading it away from that true yellow hue point on the color wheel.

It’s not too difficult to identify color bias, especially if you have a color wheel at hand. For example, a lot of people think turquoise is basically a cyan. It’s close but isn’t quite cyan. Look at a CMY color wheel and this example of the color turquoise. Do you think this turquoise has a touch more yellow or a touch more magenta than a true cyan? An easier way to determine this is to see if it’s closer to blue or closer to green on the color wheel. It should be pretty obvious that it leans closer to green. And green has cyan and yellow in it, right? Therefore, the turquoise must have a touch of yellow in it to make it lean towards green. The direction that it leans is its color bias.

Although it is important to realize which primary a color is leaning towards, since it’s easier to identify something that’s only a couple spots away on a 12 hue color wheel, identifying the bias of the primary color is usually described in terms of how close it is to the next secondary color. So, we would say that the turquoise is a cyan with a green color bias. Here’s a visual chart of color bias in colors that we would, on their own, name simply as yellow, magenta, are cyan, but the ones on the inner side of the circle are not true primary colors.

You can talk in terms of color bias with other hues besides primaries, but when it comes to color mixing, the concept is most important for your selection of primary colors that you choose to mix from. However, when we get to talking about identifying complex colors in order to mix them, (which I plan to get going on next week), determining the bias of secondaries becomes pretty essential. In other words, you can say a red has a yellow or magenta bias, but at that point you are identifying which of the primaries are dominant rather than thinking about which ones are added in since red has both yellow and magenta in it already.

 

Leaning on Color Bias for color mixing

Now why is this important? It takes us back to when you try to mix a color and it comes out a bit muddier than you expected or hoped. The reason is almost always due to one of your colors you were mixing with having an unfavorable color bias.

To explain that, I need you to think back to last week when we talked about toning down colors with complementary colors but, as I mentioned then, it didn’t always have to be its exact opposite, as long is that additional color added whatever primary was missing so that the resulting color actually had a little bit of all three primaries in it. In pigments, three primaries together make some version of a mud color so toning down is a way of making a color a tiny bit (or quite a bit) muddy.

Notice how the word mud is used to describe the combination of three primaries and also is typically the word used to describe a color mix that doesn’t come out as bright as you’d hoped? Well, it’s no coincidence. These two things are identifying the same concept. In both cases, the result is a color that includes some portion of all three primaries.

Let’s say you want to mix a nice, bright violet. Being quite comfortable with your CMY color basis, you optimistically grab a chunk of fully saturated magenta and a good pinch of a cyan and confidently mix them up, expecting a beautifully saturated violet. When it comes out looking like mauve and no adjustments to the proportions of the two colors get you your violet, you can absolutely conclude that one or both of the two primary colors you mixed with have a bias leaning towards the one missing primary – yellow.

At this point, you hold up your magenta to your color wheel and see if it leans more towards red or more towards blue. If it seems a true magenta or leans towards blue then it has no yellow in it and would not be the culprit. However, let’s say you conclude your magenta leans towards red. Sigh. Red trots away from magenta on the color wheel towards yellow so it has yellow in it.

But don’t conclude that it was just the magenta that was the problem. Pick up your cyan and see if it leans more towards green or more towards blue. If your cyan is looking a bit more like our notorious turquoise, meaning it has a green bias and therefore has a bit of yellow in it, you’ll know the yellow that toned down your planned violet color mix came from both of what you thought were true primaries.

This is extremely common in pigment-based mediums as it is very hard to create a true primary so you can just assume that most of the primary colors you choose in your art mediums will have a bias. Now, don’t think that means you are doomed to dull colors all the time. You’re not at all! Knowing this simply gives you back control. That turquoise, even though it is not a true cyan but a cyan with a green bias, will mix beautifully saturated greens with a yellow that itself has a green bias.

Plus, toning down colors is not at all a bad thing, not if that is what you are after. Colors that are toned down a bit tend to come across as more sophisticated and far more natural looking, as you can see in this pretty palette here. Now that you are aware of color bias, you can intentionally choose to mix a color from two primaries, one with the bias that leans towards the missing primary, and create a rich, but very slightly toned down color.

Understanding and identifying color bias will allow you to better anticipate the outcomes of your color mixes. It’s you taking color control!

Now, color bias does not help identify other things that desaturate a color, such as a tint (the addition of white) and shade (the addition of black) or toning resulting from the addition of gray (the addition of black and white) but were not going to go there quite yet. This idea of color bias is so important that it is the only thing I’m focusing on this week.

 

Name That Color Bias

So, I’m going to suggest that you focus on your color bias education the rest of the week and just simply ask yourself what the color bias is in any color you see that you like that you are inspired by, that you want to use in your studio, or even in your attire or home decorations. And you can do this with any color. Just identify the color as a primary or a secondary then ask yourself which way it is leaning.

In fact, look at the tertiary colors on your color wheel. Many of them have an easily identified color bias primarily because their bias is in their name. Look at yellow-green for instance. If someone showed you a shirt that color, what would you call it? You’d probably just call it green. And yes, it is green with a yellow color bias.

So do the same kind of thing with any color you come across. If the color pops in between two of our 12 color wheel colors, just pick the primary or secondary color in that pair of colors you feel it would be wedge between and name it that color with its color bias. For instance, if you found a color that lands right between violet and blue on the CMY color wheel, call it blue (a secondary color) with a magenta bias.

If the colors you are trying to identify are heavily toned down or seem to be tinted or shaded, if you have the Color Wheel Company’s CMY wheel turned over and use the shade and tint samples to find the hue on the color wheel.

For instance, the key hue of a peach color might be hard to identify until you look at the tinted versions of orange and red. The tinted oranges look a bit peachy but not quite. It certainly doesn’t lean towards the tinted yellows but it looks a touch like the tinted reds so it’s key hue land somewhere between orange and red. In this case, we will call it a red with a yellow bias. Or you can you call it an orange with a red bias since, in a lot of our minds, orange is a secondary (from our previous RYB view of color) even though it is not on the CMY wheel.

It is not so important that you identify things according to them being primary or secondary – that’s just to keep it simple for you right now. It’s far more important that you train your eye to see that colors tend not to conveniently fall into just one of those 12 identified hues on the color wheel.

So, grab your color wheel or print one out and take it around the house or studio with you and start working on your bias. The good colorful kind!

 

A Bunch of Notes

That was really the whole the lesson but there are some things that I want to bring up in case that conversation presented you wtih up some questions or difficulties. These won’t be of concern to you all but there are some interesting tidbits that others might find of interest as well.

Color Deficiencies

I hate to think of anyone being frustrated trying to learn colors. Up to this point we’ve been dealing with some pretty straightforward color concepts but color bias, a simple concept as it really is, it can be very difficult for people who have any level of color deficiency (also referred to, in its extreme, as color blindness.)

So, if you find you are having a lot of difficulty identifying color bias, you may want to see if you have any sight issues with color. There are tests online like this one that can give you an idea if this is an issue:

https://www.buzzfeed.com/awesomer/are-you-actually-color-blind

If you find you have any issues, speak to an optometrist. There are some corrective lenses that can help some people or they may think there is an underlying condition that, once treated, may reduce the issue, or keep it from getting worse.

Don’t worry if you have some color sight issues. You can, of course, still make art. Some really big artists have been color blind. Claude Monet, of all people, was colorblind later in life! He had to label all his paints to know what to use. Luckily, our art materials come labeled these days!

What’s about Warm and Cool for Color Mixing?

If you have had color training before, you may have heard of these leanings I’ve talked about this week as warm or cool versions of primary and secondary colors. That is the traditional terminology but I always found that so confusing so I teach it using the other name for it – color bias. However, if you’ve already learned color bias in terms of warm and cool, I’m not going to dissuade you of its usefulness but keep in mind that in my teaching of color concepts and color mixing, I will reserve the talk of warm and cool for choosing color palettes.

About Your Choice of Color Primaries

Throughout these articles I refer to CMY as the color basis for the primary colors we work with mostly because it would be far too confusing to include both CMY and RYB in these conversations even though I promised you could continue to use RYB. And you still can.

Now, if you want to stick with RYB (red, yellow, blue) that, by the definition of primaries, will be saying that red and blue cannot be mixed from other colors. But if you are going to work with CMY, then cyan and magenta are primaries instead which would mean that cyan and magenta can’t be mixed from other colors. How can it be possible that red and blue as well as cyan and magenta can be considered primaries which are defined as hues that can’t be mixed from other colors? Are there really five primary colors? Or is the definition wrong?

Ack! How confusing!

Strangely enough, the definition is not incorrect and you can’t work with five primary colors. You will always need to work with only three. I know. It doesn’t seem right.

The fact is, either set can work but one tends to work better than the other especially with certain materials. With natural pigments, RYB may actually work better primarily because most lines of paint colors were developed to support RYB. The reason this happened is that, back in the day, when all pigments were taken from nature, there were not really any natural pigments that were pure enough to show what the purest hues actually were. They came close with particular versions of red, yellow, and blue. Modern-day chemistry now provides us with a pure cyan and magenta that allows us to work with pigments based on the science of light and color which is why I encourage CMY as the color basis from which you work. However, tradition has led makers of conventional artist’s mediums to create colors based on the older, classic pigment paints although some of that is starting to change and you can find versions of cyan and magenta in usually at least one line of a particular artist medium.

Understanding this and the conversation we just had about color bias, I think it becomes rather apparent that CYM mixes will give you the best options for brighter colors plus better color mixing control, even when making toned down and neutral colors. But if you want to stick with RYB – just think red instead of magenta and blue instead of cyan and then work off of a RYB color wheel. Otherwise, the concepts were pretty much the same.

 

Where are all the Pics?

Okay, I have to run. I apologize that there aren’t nearly so many pieces of art as examples this week. It’s been a difficult week for my family and getting work done was not always my priority. In have two very close family members that are having particularly difficult health battles, one which got quite bad this week. We remain optimistic but it has been rough.

Neither of these loved one’s health issues are directly related to this pandemic, but the complications of trying to ensure they don’t get sick is certainly not helpful. This is part of the reason I’ve been asking that people think about wearing masks as signs of caring. When you have someone – or several someones – that you love who you know are almost certain to die if they catch this virus, the wearing of a mask really feels like a matter of life or death, and when others will do so to be supportive of people they don’t even know, it’s nothing less than heroism.

So, please, be one of our heros. If it has been recommendedwhere you live, and you are at all able, wear a mask when you’re out. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

 

Support This Blog!

If you appreciate the articles and the work put into presenting these for you, and you are in a good financial position, you can help support my work by purchasing publications on the website or you can contribute in a one-time or monthly capacity.

The sale is still on for books and past Virtual Art Boxes so you can get that special pricing on publications as well! 20% off all books and 25% off VABs.

I’ve got some special extras in the works for my monetary contributors to show you how appreciative I am of your generosity! You all are amazing. Check in next week for more info on those bonuses. Thank you so much!

 

 

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The Need for Light and Dark

June 21, 2020
Posted in ,

 

Libby Mills uses value in color to create drama and depth with a mostly monochrome color palette.

I planned on talking about color variation this week but then it occurred to me, that we will need to talk about color contrast and you can’t talk about contrasting color without talking about value. So, I switched up my plans and we’re going to talk about the often neglected concept of color’s lights and darks, otherwise known as value.

The Light and Dark of It

So, what exactly is value? Value is simply what I just mentioned – the lightness or darkness of a color. This has nothing to do with their hue. Remember, hue works more like a category so mint green and hunter green both are a green hue, but mint has a light color value while hunter green has a very dark value.

The most important thing to remember about value is that it used to create contrast. For instance, purple has a much darker value than yellow, right? Used together, they are high in value contrast and, so, make a rather dramatic color palette. On the other hand, a dark magenta and forest green will have the same or similar middle-dark value. Putting them together will not create much value contrast. Although there is nothing wrong with that – they belong to complementary (opposite) hues on the CMY color wheel so they have contrast there – the lack of value contrast greatly reduces the potential of their dramatic contrast in hues.

To be blunt, similar values in rich colors such as dark magenta and forest green would just be boring. Now, if you choose a slightly darker magenta and a lighter green such as a burgundy and an jade, that will increase the value contrast and make a much more interesting color combination, as seen in the example image here. Below the color combinations you see them with the hue removed, leaving just their gray value. So that’s another way you can think about value – it’s the lightness or the darkness of the color without any color in it.

 

Seeing the Value

If you are a painter you might be shaking your head at the simplicity of the above explanation so let’s get a bit more precise. (If your head is already spinning a bit, just read through this but don’t worry about understanding it fully yet. You can come back to this later.)

Value is not just the lightness or darkness of a color. It is the lightness or darkness of what is SEEN. That’s an important distinction because the color of things we are looking at out in the world won’t stay constant as the light changes.

For instance, have you ever been around someone in a restaurant or on a train – some poorly lighted space – thinking their hair is dark brown only to see them step outside and find that it’s a rich red? Their hair didn’t change color. The light did.

The less light there is, the darker things appear, right? That seems obvious, but it’s really important to consciously understand that. It underlines one of the primary principles about creating art, especially imagery you’re trying to reproduce in any realistic manner – it’s not about what you think something is, it’s about what you actually see. So, if you are painting a portrait of me in a dark room, you would not paint me with the bright henna red and copper hair you know I have, because in the dim light, my hair would not actually look red or copper.

You may not be a painter but if you plan to build images in canes or are painting with polymer or create pretty much anything where you are developing a two-dimensional illusion of form and depth , you will be working with these kinds of value changes in color. Even if you don’t create imagery, the concept of how light changes the value of a color is useful for understanding what value is and why it is important in your designs.

You’ve actually learned about the importance of value if you’ve ever tried to draw a ball – to make it look round you have a very light spot where light hits the sphere directly, a dark side where the light doesn’t reach, and a gradation from light to dark between the two. Now, if that ball had color, like the blue ball you see here, you can tell that it’s a solid blue ball even though it actually has a variety of blues in this rendering of it. But I couldn’t just fill in a circle with one shade of blue and have you understand it is a ball. We need to see that change in color value – the swatches pulled from the blue ball are all the same hue of blue but are all different values – in order to see a dimensional form.

Without those changes of value – those lights and darks, those highlights and shadows – everything would just look flat. That is also why you don’t want to take a photo of an object with the light shining directly on the front facing view – it will kill the shadows, eliminate value changes, and make it difficult to perceive its form.

 

Intentional Value

So, a change in color value provides us with visual information, right? We like that. We like to be able to perceive if something is round or flat, textured or smooth. The contrast between light and shadow gives us that information. It is one of the reasons that we look for (mostly unconsciously) the contrast in value in works of art as well. Contrast, or the lack of it, can tell us a great deal.

In these beads by Jennifer Morris, there is very little contrast in value but these are not about drama so it makes sense. There are muted and pale colors with feminine floral motifs on round forms with low value contrast to match. The intention for this to be soft and quiet is obvious and with all the characteristics servicing that intention, she has designed some very lovely beads.

On the other hand, here are liquid polymer painted pieces by Lynn Yuhr who is clearly going for a bold and graphic look with wide ranging color values to support that objective.

So, don’t think that you must have a high contrast in the value of your colors. It can be high or low depending on what will best serve your intention. Value contrast also can bring attention to certain portions of your work or lead your eye around the piece.

For example, the fish on this clock by Gera Scott Chandler are much lighter in value than the background, bringing our focus to them first. The light value of the circles on the background subtly connect to the larger fish since they are similar in value so that your eye moves from fish to circles, going around the face of the clock.

 

Furthering Your Color Consciousness

So, before I get into how to manipulate values – something we will get into next week – I suggest you spend some time getting familiar with the values of color. I have a couple suggestions for you.

Go Grayscale

To better familiarize yourself with the actual value of colors, I find it helpful to look at colors in grayscale. A grayscale image will show you the actual value of colors, relative to the colors they are grouped with.

This means taking photos of your work in “black and white” mode or changing color images (yours or other people’s if you want) to grayscale in a photo editing app or software. Not all cameras have a black and white (or grayscale) mode. If you’re not sure, look up your camera model online along with “how to shoot black and white” and if no information comes up, then it probably doesn’t have that option.

The other way to do this is to edit the image. To do this on your computer, use Photoshop or whatever default photo editing software is available on your computer.

  • In standard Photoshop, go to Image> Mode> Grayscale.
  • In Microsoft Paint.net, you go to Adjustments> Black and White.
  • If you are using another program, search the web for “how to convert image to grayscale” along with the name of your editing program.*

If you take a picture with a mobile device, you can usually edit it to grayscale directly in the phone or tablet.

  • On an iPhone or iPad, select an image, hit “Edit”, tap the three overlapping circles icon, then scroll the little thumbnails of the photo over until it is in “mono”. Tap “Done” if you want to save it but keep in mind it will save over the original. If you do this accidentally, just follow the same steps and you’ll find the original version in that little row of thumbnails so you can convert it back.
  • In Android, and pretty much any mobile device, you can use Google photos. Open your image in this app, tap it to bring up the icons and choose the three stacked lines. Slide the thumbnails over until it is in “Vogue” mode. You can also save it and undo it later.

*Note: There are quite a number of articles online suggesting you convert an image to grayscale by using a “saturation” adjustment. DO NOT do that for this value exercise. As we will discuss next week, saturation has nothing to do with color value. Reducing saturation tends to also reduce value, more for some colors than others. It will completely mess you up. You need a conversion to “grayscale”, “black and white”, or “mono”.

If using software and apps is just too much of a bother or you don’t have a software program, here is a free online service. You just click the file icon, browse to and open the file, and it will appear in the browser window in grayscale. You can save it from there by hitting the floppy disk icon.

Once you have these grayscale images, start looking at how much value contrast shows in the images.

  • Is there a lot of contrast or all the values fairly close?
  • Does the amount of value contrast match with the probable intention or feel of the piece?
  • Do any of the colors set next to each other just blend into one another because the values are so close? If so, do you think that works for the piece or do you think more value contrast could help it? (We’ll talk more next week about how to choose alterantives when you want a different value.)

Just make yourself more familiar with value. You can also use this value scale (click on it, then print it out) to check values of colors or pieces you have. You can lay the scale next to a color and see which value you think is the closest. Then take a photo of the scale next to the color, convert it to grayscale, and see how close you came to matching the color to the right  value. Do this a few times and you’ll be seeing in values quite quickly!

 

Get a CMY Color Wheel

You know how I recommended you get a CMY color wheel? Well, the more I work on these articles, the more I wish you ALL had the CMY color wheel from the Color Wheel company. I can’t tell you how many times I reference mine, and I am convinced that when we get into how to use these color concepts to pick color palettes and to mix color, having this particular CMY color wheel will make it all such a breeze.

No, they’re not paying me to push this. I have met the owners and they are a fantastic little family company (who worked with the polymer community’s very own Maggie Maggio to help build a CMY based grade school art curriculum, by the way) but more than that, they are so intensely passionate about color and education. That’s why they’ve done such a superior job with this particular color wheel.

So, if you haven’t gotten one yet, you can buy it directly from the company for $9 (including shipping in the US) and you will have it within 5-7 business days. It’ll be the best $9 you ever invested for your creative journey. Outside the US, I am not sure where it is best to get them but you can search for “Color Wheel Co CMY” and look for this wheel:

https://colorwheelco.com/buy-now/product/cmy-primary-mixing-wheel-7-3-4-diameter/

 

Well, I hope you’ve enjoyed this immersive in value. I have to say I am always surprised at how much there is to talk about each characteristic of color. These articles really could be much shorter but I don’t know if you would walk away really understanding and feeling confident about these concepts. We retain concepts better when we spend some time with them. I’m hoping these articles do that for you! If you have any thoughts or suggestions about the length or detail of these articles, I am always up for hearing them. Just reply to this if you get it by email or write me through the website. 

 

Wondering about my references to Intention? Or how to support this content?

Read what so many VAB members have said was a life altering (or game changing or mind opening) set of articles on Intention in the February edition of the Virtual Art Box and catch up on the concept of marks, lines, and shape too. And they are all on SALE, 25% off right now – no promo code needed. I’m also having a 20% off sale on ALL books!

The purchase of a box would help support this free content that I am creating now as well as give you a stronger base for the conversations we will be having going forward. You can help me keep the lights on by making a purchase of any of the publications I have on the Tenth Muse Arts website or by making a one-time or monthly contribution here.

Thank you for your past, present, and future support!

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Connected to Color

June 14, 2020
Posted in

Cornelia Brockstedt communicates her sense of each season through color sets (cones and the cord) that speak to her idea of Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter.

So, here we go with the second installment of this summer’s color adventure. If you didn’t read last week’s posts, you can find it here. That post really lays the foundation for a lot of what I’ll be talking about over the next few weeks so you might want to read or review that first.

This week I want to expand upon your knowledge of hues but, more particularly I want to talk about the expressive nature of color. I know last week I may have forced a shift in your thinking about primaries but to confirm that and as a way to connect last week’s post with this one, let’s ride this CMY train a bit farther down the tracks.

Hopefully, we are now all in agreement that the most accurate pigment based primary colors are cyan, magenta, and yellow. That is particularly helpful to keep in mind when mixing but that hardly gives us enough categories to work from in order to have a sense of how colors communicates or how to choose color palettes. I would like you to add a few more, starting with the CMY secondaries – the colors that result from mixing two primaries together – red, green, and blue.

Hmm. RGB, you say? Doesn’t that sound familiar? If you remember from last week, RGB are the primary colors for mixing light (such as the light that creates images on any digital screen.) Yes, CMY’s secondaries are the primary colors used to mix with light. And the reverse is true – CMY is the secondary color set for RGB. Why do you think they are interrelated like that?

You may remember from last week’s post that RGB is considered an additive color while CMY is subtractive so it’s not surprising to find them as opposite sets on the same color wheel. This is not the same RYB color wheel that painters have been using for years, mind you, so if you have a color wheel that depends on bread, yellow, blue, you might want to either get a CMY color wheel like this one by the Color Wheel Company. Or use a CMY color diagram like this one below. (Note that colors in this image below will shift if you print it and may be off due to your display already. Also the percentages listed are just guidelines when mixing colors as quality and concentration of pigments between types of materials and brands can differ greatly.)

Click for full size and to print. Created by SW Pryor, 2009

 

Back to color categories. Right now, you have six – cyan, magenta, yellow, red, green, and blue. How about we add four more for a nice even 10?

Since the majority of the art world has been working with red, yellow, and blue as primaries for the last 200 years, their secondary hues have been widely referred to in color psychology and communication. Those are green (which we already have), purple and orange. Purple and orange carry very particular associations so we can’t leave them out.

The other two I feel necessary to include are black and white. For the sake of simplicity, I’m not going to wander into the mire that is the argument about whether these are actually colors. I think that argument is really based in the one inarguable fact – they aren’t hues. Depending on the color mode, either black or white is the inclusion of all hues or the exclusion of all hues but the argument on whether they are colors is just semantics so for our purposes I am proclaiming them color categories.

 

Connecting in Color

Now, why is it important to have categories? Well, you have to realize you’re going to be communicating something specific with the colors you choose so it’s best to choose with intention. Having color categories and knowing their specific association gives you a base from which to begin making those kinds of decisions.

We all react to color on some level, so color choices are no small thing. For instance, if there are a set of sisters who are triplets, all dressed the same but one has fire engine red fingernails another cobalt blue fingernails and the third has sunshine yellow, do you not draw different conclusions about each of the women? The one with a red nails might come across as strong but conservative, the one with the blue may strike you as audacious or even rebellious, and the sister with yellow nails may seem carefree and funky. You might draw a different conclusion that I did but I’m guessing we’d agree that we would think of each of those women at least a little differently based solely on the fingernail color.

Strangely, those conclusions I made about the fingernail colors are not necessarily associations common with those specific colors but that’s our curveball here. It goes to show that it’s not just the color that creates what you are communicating – it’s also the context. And you.

Since there is a lot more to communicating with color than what we might assume is inherent in each hue, I’m going to give you very general associations as a kind of jumping off point, but you may very well have other strong associations not listed for these colors. We’ll get to that in a moment.

For now, simply read through this list but don’t try to memorize it. Just let it sink in as you read it, maybe just asking yourself what associations are true for you that I have listed, and mentally (or in writing) adding your own as you go. Then I have some thoughts about how to use these categories for your own authentic creations.

 

Color Associations by Color Category

Here are the color categories we’ll work on for now. We’ll get to the grayed out sections later.

 

Magenta – uplifting, balancing, and cheerful, this color can convey and encourage happiness, creativity, and compassion.

Purple – often thought of as the color of luxury and grandeur due to its historical rarity, it is now also associated with drama, ambition, and dignity. Purple also encourages daydreaming which may be why it is associated with mysticism and imagination.

Blue – one of the most liked colors in the world, blues can feel uplifting, quiet, calm, and reliable, as well as communicating trustworthiness and comfort.

Cyan – lively but calming, cyan invokes the serenity and brightness of tropical oceans along with a sense of cleanliness and focus.

Green – relaxing and reassuring, green is a very positive color that is easy on the eye, literally. It lessens glare and absorbs ultraviolet light reducing eye fatigue. It also represents growth, freshness, nature, and harmony although in certain contexts and tones it can also be associated with illness.

Yellow – considered the happiest of colors this is associated with joy, optimism, and spontaneity. It is visually dominant which means it can drown out other colors, so it is often used in small amounts or as a background color.

Orange – energizing, cheerful, and friendly, orange literally wakes us up by encouraging oxygen intake in the brain. It is also highly visible which is why it is used for construction and warning signs even though emotionally it feels playful.

Red – well-known as representing love, passion, power, and excitement, it is also associated with danger and blood. It also appears hot so much so that a beverage will seem hotter in a red cup than any other color. It is also the most eye-catching, so it gets noticed regardless of how little is used.

Black – is often associated with death but in the absence of a context with death associated symbols and imagery, it will more likely convey authority, respect, seriousness, and decorum while sometimes feeling aggressive. It can make objects appear deeper or heavier than light or white versions.

White – purity, cleanliness, goodness, and innocence are the more common associations with white although it can also be thought of as formal, cold, sterile, and stark. When it is not a dominant color, it is overlooked, reading as an inconspicuous background.

Now, you might be asking, what about brown? Or gray? How about pink? Yes, we do have very specific associations with those colors, but they are variations on hues, not hues themselves and I am aiming to give you baby steps, more or less. Trying to figure out how you feel about 10 colors is a pretty big baby step already. We’ll get to the rest in future weeks.

 

Real and Authentic Color

Okay, now that I you’ve read that list, let’s talk about the only color associations that really matters – your specific emotional connection to color.

Choosing the colors you want to use to communicate your intention really should be based on what you feel, not what you THINK, about those colors. This can be tough to figure out but if you’re up for it that’s what I’ll suggest you work on this week. Let me explain.

Take the color blue. It supposed to be calming, peaceful, and trustworthy and is one of the favorite colors of all times. Well, strangely, I myself have a kind of aversion to the hue of blue. It’s not all blues, but I certainly steer away from it when it comes to my attire. Other than maybe a pair of blue jeans on a back shelf, there is no blue in my closet. I know I associate dark blue clothing with domineering personalities (my father wore a lot of navy, for instance) so I don’t find it comforting or uplifting like many people might.

So, if I wanted to create a piece that portrayed a peaceful calm, I would not choose blue even though that is supposed to readily communicate that concept to others. It would be like trying to laugh at something I didn’t find funny. It will come across as inauthentic. However, I might go with green or even cyan as a dominant color because those colors do feel peaceful to me. That choice, combined with my other design choices, all rooted in my personal intention to convey a peaceful calm, should result in a cohesive and authentic feeling piece.

I know you might be concerned that choices based on your personal associations won’t communicate well to a lot of people. It is true – it might not. But for the right people, the people that will love and feel connected to the authentic you they see in your work, it absolutely will. It will also be a more joyful and satisfying piece to create for you.

 

Connection and Context

You might’ve noticed my persistent use of the word “connection”. I’m using this as a kind of catch all term for the various objectives an artist might have for drawing people to their work. Sometimes we want people to feel drawn to, and therefore connected to, the work on a personal level so that they want to buy it. Or we may be more concerned about captivating them in order to elicit a specific emotion or to get them to think, which is another kind of connection.

You can also have the objective of not trying to connect to others at all but may simply want to please yourself, which is wonderful and more than valid. In that case, it is even more important to make design choices based on how they make you feel than about what they mean to others. Even though you’re communicating with only yourself initially, the authenticity of your choices will communicate and connect to others if and when you share your work. Personally, I think this is the best way to work.

If you haven’t already noticed, everything in design is about relationships. Although the relationship between your artwork and the viewer is one relationship, I am more specifically referring to how every design element is related to each other in a piece to create an overall feel or message. Your choice of color, as strong as it can be in relaying a specific message on its own, relates to the other design elements which can change how the color and the overall design feels.

Look at these two pendants by Melanie Muir. They are using essentially the same color palette, but they have a notably different feel. For those of you who were with me last month, or bought the May VAB about shape, you might have readily recognized how the softer, round shapes of the left pendant has helped create an inviting and fun feel in that pendant. Yes, orange is associated with a sense of joy to start with but then look at the one on the right. It still has a burnt orange with black and white palette but the sharp corners of those shapes make it feel more serious although still lively due to the orange.

 

Here is another comparison with two different color palettes but the same design by Christine Dumont. Do they not feel quite different? Even though I like the core design, I am more drawn to the blue-green (yes, even though I am not big on blue.) I am a huge fan of green and I don’t think of domineering men when blue is combined with it. It actually feels uplifting and comfortable to me. The magenta, a color known to be particularly cheerful, is quite elegant here but feels too loud for me. That’s probably because I am essentially an introvert so although I like my attire to be creative, edgy, and even weird, I don’t like it to be loud.

Which do you prefer and why do you think that is?

 

 

Exploring Your Version of Hues

So, if I haven’t fully confused you by giving you a set of rules and then telling you to toss them out window, I would suggest that, this week, you spend time investigating how you feel about particular colors.

Now, how do you figure that out? Well, honestly, it’s going to take a lot longer than a week for most people if you’ve not done this before, but you can start by simply making word associations and becoming more aware of your reaction to color.

Wrapped in Color Exercises

Try to put yourself in a place, physically or mentally, where you can respond to color that surrounds you.

Go and put on different colors of clothing, wrap yourself in various colored blankets, or, if you have a stash of fabric, pull out some solid colored bits and wrap yourself up in them. Then ask yourself how you feel in each color, especially if you can do this in front of a mirror (you know, when everybody else is out for a walk or asleep or something so you don’t have to explain yourself.) What colors make you feel more energized? What colors make you feel more relaxed? Do any of them make you particularly happy or make you feel regal?

Since you are likely to be wrapping yourself up with colors that are not a pure hue, you could start making note of how you react to the hues when they are dark, pastel, bright, or muted. You may be responding to that version of the hue, not the hue itself. Like I might feel very bold and confident in a plum dress, but I would probably feel a bit subdued and delicate in a lavender one. (More on color variations next week.)

If you don’t have sufficient colors to wrap yourself up in, just try to imagine yourself in a room painted all in one hue. How do you feel in the yellow room? Does it make you want to dance around or is it annoying? How about a red room? Does it make you feel impassioned and energized or maybe frightened? How about a white room? How about a black room?

You aren’t really trying to make any specific conclusions about your relationship with color at this time. Just try and become more familiar with how you feel about various colors. Color relationships are complex. Like I love using copper polymer when making jewelry, but I can’t imagine ever creating anything with orange. Orange just doesn’t speak to the things I want to express. But you should know, I also hate tomatoes but love salsa so, I’m probably just particularly weird.

As we work through the various aspects of color over the next few weeks, you can continue to ask yourself these questions about how you feel about particular colors. And when you are designing, you could also ask yourself what color comes to mind when thinking about the emotion associated with the specific intention of the piece you’re working on. You might be surprised with what you come up with.

 

Wondering about my references to Intention? Or how to support this content?

Read what so many VAB members have said was a life altering (or game changing or mind opening) set of articles on Intention in the February edition of the Virtual Art Box and catch up on the concept of marks, lines, and shape too. And they are all on SALE, 25% off right now – no promo code needed.

The purchase of a box would help support this free content that I am creating now as well as give you a stronger base for the conversations we will be having going forward.

If you enjoy these articles, you can help me keep the lights on by making a purchase of any of the publications I have on the Tenth Muse Arts website or by making a one-time or monthly contribution here.

If your budget doesn’t allow such support, that’s perfectly okay. I just hope this is supporting your creative journey giving you more joy in your work. if it does, just let people know this is freely available so I can support even more folks.

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Not the Hue You Know

June 8, 2020
Posted in , ,

Amber Elledge used Premo’s fuchsia, cobalt, zinc yellow and white to mix all these brilliant colors.  www.facebook.com/starlessclay/

Welcome to the first week of the new incarnation of the Virtual Art Box. I’m not going to continue referring to it as such since the contents will be spread out over the weeks instead of packaged (boxed) but for those of you who have been with me since the inception of the VAB, know that you’ll get the same design lessons and ideas to improve your skills and artistic knowledge that you had when you were getting this as part of the VAB membership. For those of you who have only been joining me for the weekly blog, you’re in for quite the treat if you have any curiosity and desire to further understand how design works in creating craft.

I think you’ll be delighted to know that were going to start this new iteration of the VAB focused on color. I knew the color content couldn’t be just one article and a few nudges though. Nope. Color is far too multifaceted. It is easily the most nuanced and intricate of all design elements. I could spend the rest of the year just talking about color. I mean, just think about it … is there any other design element for which entire books are written? And so many? Well, not that I know of.

But it’s not just that there is a lot to talk about with color. The reason there are so many books, classes, and websites about color is because it can be difficult to learn. Part of it is, of course, the complexity of color, but it is also because it takes some time to understand why some colors work together and some don’t and why mixing color can be so hit and miss. In other words, it takes work to understand color. Not everybody wants to put in a lot of work on this and I understand that, but if you do make the effort, the reward will be tremendous!

Your mission, if you choose to accept it … is up to you.

My approach to teaching design for most of the past decade has been based on the concept of osmosis and I don’t plan on changing that overmuch. So, I’m going to tell you about the concepts and show you examples and encourage you to look at the world around you in terms of those new (or maybe not so new) ideas. If you read the blog every week, these concepts will eventually just sink in. It might take some time but you’ll get there. On the other hand, put a bit of work in now and you’ll be masterfully mixing color and creating gorgeous color palettes by the end of the summer!

So that’s my proposal. I’m going to teach you color over the next couple months and you can just observe and soak it up or roll up your sleeves and get hands-on, as and when it suits you. But if you keep up with even just the reading, you’ll be steps ahead of where you are now come the fall.

Deal? Okay, so let’s start with a real basic, rather convoluted, but surprisingly fascinating concept – hue, the basis of all color.

 

Jan Montarsi, Mica mush pendant created with gold polymer and the cyan, magenta and yellow equivalents in alcohol ink (Pinata’s Senorita magenta, Baja blue, and Sunbright yellow.) www.flickr.com/photos/jembox/

It’s Up to Hue

Hue is what most people think of first when they think of color and color theory – that which makes up the purest aspect of color. Scientifically speaking, each hue is a particular point on the color spectrum, but I think it’s best to think of hue as a category. Red is not just fire engine red, right? It’s also brick and burgundy and rose. It’s a range, a grouping that we use to organize the myriad options we have in color.

Why think of the names of pure color as categories? Because each of those categories represent a specific set of things to us. Our response to color is primarily determined by our culture but all colors make some level of emotional and psychological connection which, as creatives, we can use to communicate to the viewer of our work. Every one of the infinite number of colors available to us has its own specific response but it is certainly easier to start by understanding the characteristics of just a few categories each defining a specific range of color. You can then grow your knowledge from there.

So, I thought I’d have you learn a handful of color categories based on pure color hues for the purpose of communication in your work but I also need you to understand hue in terms of how you mix colors. Unfortunately, categories and mixing are not based on the same concepts so we are going to have to learn those separately. You see, while categories are about defining our response to color, mixing is based on science. In other words, one is based on an ever-changing landscape of personal and cultural understandings while the other is rooted in physics.

So, let’s start with science and look at the meaning of categories later. Mind you, this conversation may feel like a roller coaster at moments but buckle up and I think you’ll be surprised at what you’ll learn. At the very least, I have some surprising trivia not to mention a thrilling new position from which to work with color.

 

True Colors

Color theory, especially for visual creatives, really starts with the concept of primaries. Primaries are known as non-reducible colors because, by definition, they can’t be created from other colors. Strangely enough though, you won’t find just one set of primary hues that you can or need to work from. So, you see how color confusion starts from the beginning. Let me break it down for you and make it simple.

If you go by the definition of primaries being colors that can’t be created by other colors, then there are just two primary sets, one for each of the two different materials from which color can be created – light and pigment. Mixing light is used to create visuals on your computer screen or dramatic lighting on a theater stage, while pigment is what gives any object its color including colorants that give paint, chalk, clay, etc. their color. Both light and pigment primaries are based on the same thing – the spectrum of colors in the range of natural light that our eyes take in.

When mixing light, the three primaries used are red, green, and blue (a.k.a. RGB, that color mode digital photo editing software is always yammering on about). From those three, you can mix up any color of light you want but put all three together and you get white because white is the full light spectrum, like the sunlight. For that reason, RGB is known as an “additive” color model because you add parts of the spectrum to create a color of light for your eyes to take in.

Pigments, on the other hand, reflect just parts of the light spectrum back to our eyes (so if the pigment reflects only yellow, that’s what reaches our eyes and we see yellow) while absorbing the rest of the spectrum, effectively removing that part of the light that hit it the object from being reflected to our eyes. Because of this, pigment colors are referred to as subtractive color because we only see what’s left. Mix three completely pure pigment primaries and you end up with black which is the absence of light—those pigments collectively are able to absorb all parts of the light spectrum.

I know this is getting a little scientific but I just want you to have a basis for understanding why the colors on your computer screen can look so much different than colors in your physical world or in print. The additive versus subtractive properties of the two-color modes just don’t translate back and forth very well. That should take some of the pressure off of you though. Now you know that it’s not just you that can’t re-create any color in pigment based materials from something on-screen or your photographic skills alone aren’t what makes it so hard to take a digital photo with accurate colors. It’s just a crazy, mixed up color world.

Now to the truly mind-boggling stuff.

 

As far as pigment goes, most people have long been taught that the pigment primaries are red, yellow, and blue (RYB) even though there is no scientific basis for it. It’s just something a variety of Europeans arbitrarily developed based on the pigments they had available between the 17th and 19th centuries. And it worked, more or less, with paint. Oddly enough, around the same time, science was slowly coming to the conclusion that cyan, magenta, and yellow (CMY) are more precise primary colors for pigments but colorists in the art world didn’t consult the science of color physics. Plus, it wouldn’t be until the early 20th century that chemistry would provide the pure pigments needed to properly create visual work in CMY.

The more precise primaries were readily adopted by the printing industry in the early 1900s since this produced the brightest and broadest range of colors, but it was too late for western society’s language of, and associations with, color. Artists, designers, and psychologists had already established language and research including categories (yes, the categories we’ll be looking at) based on RYB. So, we are presently stuck with RYB when it comes to categories and communication. However, there is still a strong argument for learning and using CMY.

 

The Case for the Late Bloomers

If you are open to mixing with cyan, magenta, and yellow, you’ll likely find your color mixing is easier to predict and more saturated than through the use of RYB mixing. Just as the printing industry did. However, not all mediums for all brands make it easy to work in CMY versus RYB. In polymer, some brands are geared to CMY (such as Fimo Professional and Pardo), others seem to favor RYB (such as Kato and Cernit) while others aren’t geared to color mixing at all (such as Sculpey Souffle).

I, myself, have long been a convert to the CMY primary basis for mixing pigments of any kind but as a publisher, I’ve spent years working with printers which now uses CMY, plus “key”. (Key is black, as in black is the key plate that adds the detail in color printing’s four plate printing process, which is why print color is referred to as CMYK.) So, it wasn’t hard to break through the old lessons of RYB. And then there is the simple science – contrary to popular belief, red and blue can be mixed from other colors. I bet many of you find that hard to believe. Well, it’s not hard to prove. Here is the proof from my studio table:

Here are two sets of primaries and my mixes for their secondaries using the clay color on either side of them. I have Fimo in CMY with red, green and blue secondaries and Premo using RYB with green, purple and orange secondary mixes. I chose these sets in large part because that’s what I had on hand but also because Fimo set up the professional line based on CMY (although they call their cyan True Blue), and Premo has long supported RYB with their ultramarine blue, cadmium red, and cadmium yellow.

Note how much brighter and more saturated the CMY secondary colors I mixed are. Relative to the primaries, the mixes are neither toned down (losing saturation or purity) or darkened. The RYB delivers a decent orange but the green is quite toned down and dark and the purple looks practically black even though I went very heavy on the red and it’s nearly a wine color.

But here is what should really convince you that CMY mixing knowledge is something you need in your toolbox. Here is the same red and blue from the Fimo mix next to the blue and red Premo. Now do you believe that red and blue aren’t primaries that can’t be mixed from other colors?

Did that blow your mind a little bit? Do you feel the need for a glass of wine or comforting cup of tea? I remember when I first mixed blue and red from a CMY set of colors. I felt like I’d been duped all these years! But don’t take my word (or my pictures) for it. Try some of this color voodoo yourself.

 

Exercising Your Hues

This is a very simple exercise that will take you maybe 15 minutes but could be life changing for your color mixing skills. Like everything in art, skill is not about what your hands do but rather how you see things. I would ask that you see how this color mixing works with your own eyes and learn how the color in your preferred material and brand work depending on the primaries you choose to work with.

  1. Find a set of CMY and RYB in your clays, paints, inks or whatever you’d like to work with. You can even try a couple different mediums since the mediums act differently as well.

Here is a chart Maggie Maggio put together for the primaries of 3 major polymer clay brands to give you a guide for choosing primaries from your available clay colors. This was from an article titled, “21st Century Color” in the Winter 2015 – Hidden issue of The Polymer Arts, which talks more about the use of CMY for color mixing if you are only fascinated now.

  1. Once you have your two sets of primaries, just mix the following:
  • Mix secondaries for CMY: red, blue, and green.
  • Mix secondaries for RYB: orange, purple, and green.

I won’t be able to tell you how much you need to mix of each color to get those secondaries since every brand is different but you can start with equal amounts of both primaries, maybe adding a bit more of the lighter of the two. In my experience, yellow colorants are not as intense so you need more of it while blues (but not cyan) and magenta’s (and sometimes reds) can be quite intense. Just mix a small amount and then add what you need to adjust to what you think is a middle ground.

  1. Now, using the CMY set, create an orange and a purple:
  • For orange, start with two parts magenta and one part yellow then adjust to make a satisfactory orange midway between the yellow and the CMY’s secondary red.
  • For purple, start with two parts magenta and one part cyan then adjust to get a purple/violet midway between magenta and the CMY’s secondary blue.
  1. And lastly, try and create a cyan and magenta from the RYB set.
  • For cyan, start with two parts blue and one part yellow then adjust to make a color midway between the blue and green.
  • For magenta, start with two parts red and one part blue then adjust to get a color midway betweenpurple and red.

Which set of these were most successful? Of course, I expect the CMY to make those secondaries easily but the RYB results could go either way, depending on the RYB colors you used.

Also compare the orange and purple from the CMY set to the RYB set. Which do you prefer? And what have you learned that you didn’t expect?

They’re all good and useful colors no matter what they are mixed from. I find that mixing with RYB lend itself well to organic color palettes since those old primaries basically have a built in neutralizer (the addition of a complementary color) since they aren’t pure hues. That keeps the mixes from feeling too bright or artificial. But when I want bright, I stick with CMY or find a pre-made color that’s close so I only have to add tiny amounts of another color if it needs any tweaking.

Are you more comfortable with the idea of working with CMY primary hues? Really, all you’re doing is switching up your blue and red a tad from the old classic trio. Favor a blue that leans slightly towards green rather than purple and a red that leans some towards hot pink. It’s just a slight shift on the color wheel. It does, however, help if you use a CMY color wheel since magentas and cyans don’t sit equidistant from yellow on an RYB color wheel. Here is one you can print off for now.

Original graphic by DanPMK at English Wikipedia.

Using a different wheel will also help with things we’ll be talking about next week – secondary, tertiary, and complementary colors. But don’t fret. The CMY color wheels work the same as RYB but they’ll give you new and exciting color palette combinations to contemplate. So, if you can spend the week playing with and getting used to the idea of a little CMY into your life, you will have just added and organized an entire arsenal of color mixing that you didn’t have before. How wild is that?

If you do the color mixing exercises, I would absolutely love to see photos of your results and thoughts from you. Please let me know what brands and colors you used and how you felt about your results. If I get enough, I’ll share them next week or on my social media pages if you give me permission. Send them to me directly by responding to this if you get this by email or by going to the website here.

Can You Help?

I’ll try not to be too overt about asking for support but like every business, there are non-negotiable costs, mostly services that help get content to you. So, if you like the content and are able to help keep me going, pop over to the shop and pick up books and back issues missing from your library, gift a publication to a struggling polymer friend (I’ll include a card or can even sign the publication – leave instructions in the “Order notes” section after the shipping address), or contribute any amount you wish with the contribute options here. Also, patronize my advertisers –they do help spread the word about what I’m doing as well as funding some of what I do.

Otherwise, I hope you simply enjoy the learning. Have a colorful week!

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Iconic Shapes

May 31, 2020
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If there was a shape that could represent state of the world today, what would you say that is? Chances are, you’re thinking of something that works as an icon or symbol rather than something as simple as a circle or octagon. Abstract shapes are something I touched upon only briefly in the article about shape and form at the beginning of the month. They are most commonly created for things that we are already familiar with, many of which are considered universal. Some have been with us for ages such as stars, teardrops, and hearts, but simplified shapes will pop up whenever a quick method of communication that is not language dependent is needed or preferred.

For instance, right now, a square with half circles on the ends, often with a few horizontal lines in the square, represents a medical mask. Such an icon may have meant nothing to you at the start of this year but it’s hard not to recognize it for what it is now.

That is the power of abstract shapes. With minimal characteristics, these shapes represent an object if not an entire concept. For this reason, I suggest you to not use them too frivolously. If you pop a heart shape on something, it should be because your intention necessitates calling on the viewer’s emotions rather than just putting it on to be cute. Now, I’m not saying that using hearts to be cute is a bad thing but realize that people will see it as an emotional expression. And I say emotional, not love, because the heart represents a base positive emotion associated with love, caring, and happiness but if your heart shape has a hole in it, is cracked or torn, or is jet black, the viewer will start thinking of things like loneliness, sadness, or even animosity.

Not all abstract shapes have such a wide range of potential meaning but many can elicit a similar or even  stronger reaction, such as the shape of a cross or particular types of star shapes, depending on the context in which it’s used.

If you want to use abstract shapes but do not want to be so obvious or bring up the more common associations, you might find it useful to combine abstract shapes or to use them in unexpected ways. This approach to the use of abstract shapes can make for a much more subtle or complex statement which means your viewer will probably react more viscerally even with a readily recognized shape since its associations won’t be so blunt.

Here are just a few examples of abstract shapes where the association with them has been toned down.

Here, Elsie Smith overlays the impression of leaf forms on heart shapes showing just how perfectly they fit together. Pairing these makes the heart a gentle emotional background to the focus on, and apparent love of, nature’s intricate leaf formations.

 

This next one is a really good synergy of recognizable abstract shapes. Speaking in terms of the silhouette of the piece below as well as the focal point of the opening image, we could see a sunburst, a starburst, or a flower shape. Since Zuda Gay Pease was primarily creating flowers at the time she created this, we can assume her intention was for it to be a flower, but the energy of all those many pointed tips makes it come across as celestial. So, we get a combined association – the femininity and beauty of the floral shape with the energy and excitement of bursting light. It’s quite an impressive mix.

 

It’s interesting that practically all types of celestial bodies have a recognizable abstract shape (or variations of them.) There is probably nothing quite so common in abstract celestial shapes as a crescent moon. Our association with it can be fairly wide ranging from simply symbolizing the quiet and dark of night to embodying the ebb and flow of life.

In this example, I found it very curious that the lines on these crescents appear to be sun symbols with all their brilliant energy, and the bright blue ends of the crescent, visually truncating the shape, make us less likely to think crescent moon than simply an angular and curvy shape. The moon and its mysteries therefore become a quiet background to the louder energy of the colors and lines. I really like this contrast of concepts here as the sun and the blue color brings in a liveliness while the unconscious reaction to the moon shape is a quiet but divergent undertow. (Unfortunately, the Etsy shop from which this was saved is no longer available, so I am not sure who created it. If anyone knows, I would be ever so grateful if you would send me their name so I can update it.)

 

Is this making sense? I don’t think it’s hard to grasp the general idea of how iconic an abstract shape can be so I’m going to keep this short today. It’s also been a busy week getting all your accounts fixed up and so I should get off this computer. I challenge you to look around at the way abstract shapes are used in art work, be it your own or other people’s pieces.

 

Go Forth and Be Free… to be Inspired, For Free!

If you haven’t heard yet, starting in June (this next weekend) I will be posting the upcoming Virtual Art Box content previously planned for the VAB membership project on this blog so everyone can read it for free. I wanted readers, regardless of budget right now, to have access to these discussions, lessons, and exercises so we can all work on our art and increasing our skills and enjoyment together as well as give me the opportunity to take my work load down a notch or take breaks when necessary without being unfair to paid subscribers.

So, you can look forward to some in-depth article length discussions and ideas with a bit more juice to it than the blog usually has along with ideas on how to work with and apply the concepts if you so desire. Take it like a free class or just let the ideas sink in and enjoy the art. It’ll be here for you, starting next weekend.

Supporting Free Content

I am glad to have your support, in anyway you can provide it, to help me produce this content for free. Your supportive emails are always appreciated but if you want to help me keep the lights on, making purchases on the website is one of the best ways to do so since it gets you (or a lucky giftee) something to enjoy as well giving the contributing artists further exposure all while helping to keep me in busines.

If you have everything you want from the website at the moment, I have provided a donation option here for those who have asked and can afford to toss me a little something to help me, in particular, pay my tech guy and allow me much needed doses of dark chocolate!

So … until next weekend!

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Doodling Days

April 5, 2020
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I’m sorry I didn’t get this out Saturday night as usual. I could have sworn yesterday was Friday. Both myself and my husband were here working away at home like it was a regular workday. Yep, life is a little out of whack for us all right now. But assuming you still have time to be inspired if you’re getting this Monday morning, here’s some ideas about a stress relieving and fun way to pass the time as well as increase your creativity.

We’ve all doodled at some point. There’s something addictive about putting pen or pencil to paper and drawing random lines, allowing them to meander until we see something in our doodles and from it create an actual image or design. I’m sure you’ve done that same kind of thing in clay, whether you equated it to doodling or not. The random, seemingly aimless lines we draw or carve or lay out with a snake of clay are suggestions of things that already exist out there in the world. Like looking for shapes in the clouds, our minds will see an object or creature or other symbol in the clay, if you give your imagination free reign to do so.

In actuality, you can find similar lines in nature for almost any line you randomly come up with. However, nature’s lines are rarely aimless. The winding path of a stream or river, the marks left by waves in the sand, or the undulating profile of a mountain range on the horizon are all lines that don’t have consistency or focal points, but are still very purposeful—they are the result of change and action and define some feature of nature. Because of this, I think we want to find purpose in lines that look random and decide what they might define.

That would be why you would look at pieces like these earrings by Lina Brusnika and see, in the layer of undulating lines a landscape, maybe hills or an ocean. Lina looks to live in Kamchatka, a peninsula in the far east of Russia. Her posted photos on LiveJournal of beaches and landscapes make me think she had these views on her mind when she created these.

If you haven’t doodled with clay, you really must give it a try. Like drawing doodles, this kind of clay play can relieve stress and help you break though design problems and uninspired studio days. The pendants that open this post are clay doodles by Jael Thorp. See just how beautiful a bit of clay doodling can be? Jael has actually done a lot of clay doodling. Even those pieces she doesn’t list as doodles, such as cane-covered ornaments and extrusion decorated hearts, have a definite doodling feel to them. They are great examples of how limitless this doodling with clay idea is. There aren’t any restrictions as to how you doodle with clay. Use extrusions, bits of clay, cane slices, hand tools on sheeted clay, or go crazy with embellishments. It’s about letting the mind and hands go and seeing where they take you.


Doodling, although often thought of as mindless work, is not, at least, pointless. It is really a translation of what is going on in your subconscious or it’s an expression of your mind’s reaction to what you see and hear around you. If you are doodling without a preconceived idea of what you are drawing, especially while otherwise occupied (such as being on hold during a phone call or listening to a lecture), the doodling can create a very telling design and set of patterns pulled from subconscious thoughts.

The doodling-related development of Zentangling which uses repeated patterns and lines to lend your doodling direction, actually includes a series of rules, such as drawing only in 3.5-inch squares, only drawing in pen so you can’t erase and only drawing abstract designs. This takes the idea of doodling up a notch, but it can still result in quite personal designs. A lot of people have expanded on the Zentangle idea, throwing many rules out the window and developing cool abstract art like the Zentangle you see here, by Shreya Srinivasan who is using quarantine time to get colorfully creative.

 

Doodling also allows you to let go of the planning that is so often necessary in crafting so you can get into a relaxing flow which tends to expand the imagination and creativity and, in speaking specifically of doodling, can result in patterns that you may end up using in your more planned craft work. You can use doodles or Zentangles to create patterns for hand carved rubber stamps, DIY silk screens, image transfers, and hand-tooled marks and lines as well as using traditional drawing and coloring mediums on cured clay. Here you see Fabiola Perez took her Zentagle type drawing and created pendants directly from it.

 

Doodling is also thought to help you problem-solve so, if you hit a creative block, stop, and listen to some music, a book on tape or podcast, and then just doodle away! The solution to your creative work may then have room and a conduit to bubble to the surface, or you may find a whole new idea there in front of you.

The other thing about doodling that has been discovered through clinical studies is that it reduces stress and can make you more aware and mindful. And right now, anything that helps reduce the stress and calms the mind is a useful if not absolutely necessary thing to have in your daily life. So, doodle for your well-being as well as for your art!

 

A Creative’s Virtual Salon

So, I have been brewing up an idea to allow us to gather online, not for a class as there are plenty of those out there, but more of an intellectual salon. It’s something I was actually thinking about when I started the Virtual Art Box and has been discussed in a wishful way amongst many of my artistic friends. However, trying to figure out how to get everyone on a virtual gather when there is a technological curve to overcome left me a bit befuddled and, it seems, there was always some other priority I was having to chase.

Well, much has changed of late! We are now in a time when we need to reinvent the way we connect so it looks like most people have now learned to use videoconferencing or other video gathering technology as are one of the only ways we can connect somewhat face-to-face with the people that we love and care about. Suddenly the technical hurdles have been largely knocked down! So, I figured there was no time like now to take advantage of our technology and have some intriguing chats with fascinating minds. Part presentation, part interview, part coffee klatch, I am envisioning an intellectual gathering that will feed mind and imagination as well as our need to connect.

I’m still trying to work out the details. Life in this world is a bit distracting and I have more on my plate then I should (not like that’s new but it is starting to change) but if you’re interested in either attending an intellectual salon, or would like to be one of the participants presenting ideas and discussion, click here and fill out this extremely brief form to let me know.

I am still debating as to whether this will be primarily a Virtual Art Box feature in terms of being able to participate live or whether I will be able to afford to make this publicly available. Like many of you, the pandemic has thrown my previous plans as well as my financial situation into disarray. I’m having a very hard time promoting and asking for money when I know so many people are in such uncertain circumstances. But let’s see if we can make this happen first and then I will figure out how to support it!

So, for now, fill out my little 4 question questionnaire if you would like to encourage me to make this happen!

 

Okay, now I have to get back to polishing up the packet for all you Virtual Art Boxers. Stay safe, stay well, and stay home as much as possible. The sooner we kick this virus to the curb, the sooner we can all get back out and about!

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A Whale of a Time

March 8, 2020
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Is it me or are there a lot of ocean creatures just popping up in artwork all over the place? Maybe it’s an algorithm thing in my browser so it’s just me seeing them but whales in particular seem to be quite popular of late. What is it about whales that grabs the imagination? If you created a whale inspired piece, what would it look like?

I’ve always wanted to write an article about how people interpret the same things so differently but it’s really such a nebulous concept. Our interpretation of any one thing comes from all those experiences we’ve had over the years, or at least should. The subject of where our passion and our artistic voice comes from is the primary theme woven through this month’s Virtual Art Box, so I guess that’s on my mind. So, let’s just have an enjoyable, light-hearted excursion this week into the inspiring world of whales and see what you can glean about the artists and their experience by looking at the differences and choices they have made in their art.

 

Whale Sightings

My whale sightings started with this under side view of a whale and her baby by Christi Friesen. The underside of things in general don’t get a lot of attention but Christi picked the exact view and pose to really show off a connection between mother and child. Knowing Christi is recuperating from a year of near full-time travel in Hawaii, I get why she had whales on her mind but what made her think to view them as if under them in the water? It’s a fascinating view – both of the whales and of Christi’s mind.

 

Kseniia Dolhopolova, a jewelry artist from Ukraine says, “I create jewelry only in a good mood and try to make it with its own soul.” She created the whale opening this post. It not only has its own soul but a whole city on its back besides! Playfulness and joy seem to be of primary importance in the intention of her work here. But how do you think she came to think a city should be on the back of a whale?

 

Evgeny Hontor, a sculptural artist from Moscow, uses the broad surfaces of her creatures to create ornate designs and patterns. This whale, however, is the only one of hers I’ve seen that is also growing a lively garden on it’s back. So, what is with things sprouting from the back of whales? Is it born from the barnacles seen on some or just that they are so big that it’s not a leap to imagine a whole other world on their back?

 

Looking around for more interesting interpretations of whales, I came across Maori legends about whales. From the New Zealand Department of Conservation:

“In Maori cosmology, whales are the descendants of Tangaroa, the god of the oceans. They were thought of in awe, as supernatural beings, and often deemed tapu, or sacred. Whales appear in the migration legends of many tribes. In some, whales were a sign indicating to a tribe that it should settle in a particular place. In others, whales were a guide.”

So, the inspiration of something like this mother of pearl came from deep seated associations. The maker of this isn’t named but it comes from an online shopped simply called Janet’s that sells the work of Samoan and Pacific artists and designers. The swirl is a circle of life symbol integrated into the whale tail, creating an abstracted image of the whale and its ingrained cultural meaning. I just thought it was a lovely and simple design but, reading a bit about the culture and meaning around it and made it far more complex in my mind.

 

I love that art can be such an intimate glimpse into the world of an individual, but I think sometimes we forget to look that deep, inundated with all the work we see online and other places every day. Just stopping to think on it can really add to your enjoyment and give you more ideas and inspiration on how to reach in and bring out the originality that is you, into your work.

 

Having a Whale of a Virtual Time

Letting your unique self out and into your work as well as the wonderful and intense world of marks, an unassuming but immensely important design basic, are the subjects that guides all the content in the Virtual Art Box for March released yesterday. If you are signed up for it but haven’t seen your Art Box in your inbox, check your spam folder. If it’s not there, write me and I’ll get you fixed up.

If you haven’t joined us yet for VAB, get on board! We had one very intense and immensely productive month already and we have another one geared for this month. I must warn you, the VAB is not a passive mode of entertainment or something to just pass the time with. It’s all about getting in the studio and getting things done, learning about yourself as a crafter or artist, and discovering your source of creativity.

I have had more emails and messages in one month about people having the biggest “a-ha moments” they have had in months, if not years, than I have in the last several years put together, and it’s all from working with the Virtual Art Box content. I’m even a bit shocked at how much the simple idea of intention has changed the way so many of the VAB readers are looking at their work and how excited they are to discover the focus and direction they’ve been missing. I am thrilled beyond words!

So, if you want to check the VAB out, I’d suggest grabbing the February edition first. Intention is really a foundational concept and understanding it and working with it the way the Art Box will have you do, can be, well, as a couple Art Boxers said, life changing. How cool is that?!

 

Well, it’s been a long week, as satisfying and fun as it was creating the core of the second Virtual Art Box month, so I am going to take a day off and spend it outside and maybe cleaning the studio in preparation for my own creative time. My blood sugar has been normal for a straight week and my arm has given me next to no pain even after a full week of work so it looks like I can pull the intense focus on I had on my health and put some of it into my art. And some of it into taxes. And some into housework. But you know, I intend to make it happen and I’ll share my forays in the studio with you here!

I hope you have wonderful forays into your own studio with your own wonderful interpretations of your world this week!

 

 

 

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