Experimenting with colour

I’ve been properly painting today.  I feel like I haven’t being doing much of it lately.  It was really nice to just let loose. 

I had to do 3 colour studies, and then from those 3 colour studies, I was to pick out 3 colours from each study and begin to work them into some of the paintings I want to submit for final assessment. 

The first study was based on Toulouse Lautrec’s Helene Vary.  I reworked it in oil, using Picasso as my inspiration, so this image was fairly controlled.  I picked out three colours from another painting and tried working with them.  The image I originally chose them from was mostly blue with little bits of magenta and light green.  I decided to go with green as a background and use blue and magenta in the foreground.  I really don’t like what I painted, but it is only about experimenting at this stage.

The next painting was much more enjoyable for me.  I painted the Mona Lisa using Frank Auerbach as my inspiration, allowing me to be much freer with my brushstrokes.  The only thing I didn’t like was that I used acrylics and it was really drying too quickly for my liking. However, I do love the colouring.  I worked this painting in a monochromatic scale, and yes, I used blue but I think it gives it a more sombre feel to it.

My final piece is Van Gogh’s Starry Night and was painted with undiluted watercolours.  I have to admit, I really dislike anything that isn’t oil.  I hate how quickly things dry.  The only plus point is that because it does dry so quickly, it means I can run my sketchbook through the scanner. Not much of a plus, is it?  Anyway, this piece was again inspired by Auerbach, and this time I worked in a colour that I’m not entirely comfortable with – Pink.  I dislike pink.  I’ve always disliked pink, and its many shades.  It’s too girlie, childlike, bubblegum-ish, etc.  I think Barbie dolls, and bimbos.  I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with people liking pink, but it’s just never been me.  I never ever wear pink.  It cannot be found anywhere in my home.  There is nothing really good that I can say about it.  So putting my dislikes and bias aside, I thought I’d give it a try.  I can honestly say…I still don’t like pink, but I quite like this… for pink!  It does remind me somewhat of strawberry and cream boiled sweeties.  I don’t even like those!

So those are my colour studies for tomorrow.  I’m just relieved to have got them completed.  I didn’t think I’d manage to get them all done tonight, but thankfully the last two paintings only took me about 15 minutes each.  Mixing the colours took longer!  So that’s me for tonight.  I’ve got a full day ahead tomorrow, but I have a long weekend and it’s my birthday on Saturday, so I’m going to have some me time for a change!