Sunday, May 17, 2009
The limited palette
Several years ago I took a Janet Fish workshop hoping to learn more about color. I think her paintings demonstrate a masterful understanding of color relationships and proportions. The best advice I got from her was to use a limited palette in order to unify my work, and to study the paintings of Wolf Kahn, among others who are masters of color. So, I created a template of palettes used in many of Kahn's paintings and then analyzed the proportions and placements of those colors. I soon learned to limit my own palette to only three or five colors, and to create other colors from those. This effectively unified my work. Every now and then I experiment with new combinations for my egg shell series by doing a few "studies" at a small size (8" x 10") that I can complete in one day. Here are a few examples of my efforts:
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3 comments:
Thanks for sharing. I've been doing something similar with my work. I only use 3 or 4 colors (plus white) in each of my paintings. I don't think I've used more than 5 in over two years. -Don
Fun. Fun, Fun!
Thanks for showing the beauty of your limited palette eggshell paintings. I, too, try to analyze Wolf Kahn's colors and then translate them into a portrait.
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