Permission Slip: complex color

Starting a new blog series here wherein I share with you specific insights that make it into my mind from building Halfland. As a long-term project, heck, even with a short-term project, keyword; project, the process of actually doing something will be transformational.

And the things I'm gleaning can all be categorized as giving myself permission. Giving myself permission to do what I (somehow) know but discount for reasons. I'll be posting quick notes about these lessons, titled 'Permission Slips.'

I've mentioned before how letting the hands work without the head was an accidental, powerful discovery. How I would be so exhausted, too tired to think, I'd sit back in my mind and watch as my hands made choices and grabbed at materials, carried out tasks that I didn't understand. After a while, I'd catch on and suddenly have a new thing accomplished for the film, in a wholly new way than I could have directly thought up.

I adopted that way of working since then, and now I often allow that smarter part of me to take the lead more freely with everything.

Today's inaugural Permission Slip

is about using complex color.

About 15 years ago, I, like I do, used whatever I had on hand to create, in this case, a little nook area in our new home. Making it a nice spot in which to eat our meals. I had a lovely full-color print in an art book on Van Gogh, of course, his first of the intended sunflower triptych (he wanted to paint something cheerful and beautiful for his colleague Gaugin, who was to stay in the yellow room at Arles.)

Its appealing aqua background was the perfect bit of cheer for the little, freshly painted rustic room. I had some leftover cotton aqua fabric that I could knock up into cafe curtains there. But something truly wild happened when I did.

I thought I'd a good eye for color and that the aqua fabric was a match, or at least a coordinate, for the painting. I kept walking by the room and wondering why the colors didn't match at all. The curtains looked much too "simple" no matter what type of light or whatever time of day. It played like a puzzle in the back of my mind as I went about my business for days. I would stop what I was doing and try to fix it. Nothing worked until I finally saw what Van Gogh had done in the painting.

I wasn't an aqua at all. No, m'am. It was instead a multitude of layers of translucent hues, one on top of the other. I saw it was a powder blue, yes, but over that, especially in the areas he wanted to deepen (sample circled above), he used a deep olive green, likely still on the brush from the flower leaves, as using color from the bouquet would have worked to harmonize the picture.

Noticing his use of color in this way was a revelation. It wasn't just a blend of blue and green; it was a layering of transparent colors that created the beautiful effect. That's why no matter how much I overdyed the fabric to try to match the color, it could never look the same. I certainly wouldn't have thought to have tried olive green!

Understanding this technique opened my eyes. Clear colors have their place. However, I suppose that if I want greater depth, a richer atmosphere, more finesse, a sense of harmony, and truer-to-life colors, I'll have to pay attention to creating more emotion, energy, and excitement by how I use complex color.

Various other samples around the house featuring the Complex Color aqua: color swatches,
close up of the Sunflower piece now as found object assemblage (in progress), layered silk necklaces I've made as gifts, detail of tea cup watercolor, journal color collage, imported carved furniture, a quick color-story abstract, collection of quality pastel chalks bought for the mermaid while in New York, painted mermaid scales, handmade watercolor chips, detail of monoprinted lampshade by husband (!), shadows of leaves outside projected by sunlight onto the abstract canvas, handmade aqua opal on journal cover,
a magazine image of Chinese copper jar (in a color I've never seen in my life) that I attempted
To color-match as an exercise, final mermaid scales on Kyra's puppet tail.