This week in the studio: color mixing
This week in the studio: color mixing
I'm working on expanding my color repertoire and getting a bit more sophisticated in my color mixing. Plus making a huge mess is the best fun ever.
Hello friends, Happy Autumn!
This week’s article is about making colors sing together in a new (to me) way. I’ve been making all kinds of colors I don’t usually work with, and it’s a fun adventure.
Read on for my latest article.
Find me online:
All of my existing paintings are ON SALE through 10/8/24! If you’ve had your eye on one of my paintings, this is a great time to snap it up. Kris’s Art Sale
Visit my art website: KrisCahillArt.com.
Fine art prints of my work: Fine Art America shop
Thank you for being here, I always appreciate you for showing up.
Love, Kris
Color gives me life
I’m working on expanding how I use color in my work.
I’m spending a few weeks working on ideas, colors, experiments, and more, to get ready for painting new work. All of this daily studio work is so satisfying: in 30 minutes or less I can create a 9” x 12” sheet of all of the color mixes I can fit on that sheet, from just a couple of colors and black and white.
I’m inspired to do this after taking Louise Fletcher’s ‘Find Your Joy Taster Course’ a couple of weeks back. I then joined Art Tribe, which is an online artist’s community and educational space, also created by Louise, and this month is all about color.
I love color, a lot, and have always felt I was pretty good at it. But I also found that I kept doing some of the same things again and again, working within a particular comfort zone. So I am branching out.
One of my goals as an abstract painter is to build more space into my paintings, more quiet areas, more beautiful light tones and interesting neutrals, in order to more successfully offset some of those intense saturated colors that I love and intend to use always.
Color gives me life, and I want to become better at working with it, more nuanced and aware of how it can work effectively in a painting.
These color mixing exercises came from Louise Fletcher’s Art Tribe exercises, and were a challenge to mix as many colors as possible from just two complementary colors, plus black & white. I have only scratched the surface. Since my goal is to find new nuanced tones to work with, I’ll take some of what I discovered working these so far, and make softer paler tones.
It’s really fun and geeky to play like this, and it’s helping me create the space I want for the next new work to happen. In the meantime I’ve also learned to not be afraid to paint ugly. I can hear the song in my head “Don’t fear the ugly!”.
Because it’s fall, I am ready to work with the beautiful burnt siennas and browns and golds, the deep russet reds and olive greens. This is my favorite season of the year, and I want to paint my feelings through it.
Every existing painting in my shop is on sale through 10/8/24!
I am cleaning out the studio, and have just marked down some of them further. Please do go check out what’s available in my online shop. U.S. shipping is included for most pieces.
Every existing painting in my online shop is priced to sell until 10/8/24. This is the perfect time to pick up some colorful original art for your home, or to give as a gift.
Color inspiration!
I started studying at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1976, and the glorious Chagall windows were installed one year later in the museum. I love these so much, the saturated blues with pops of color are a healing balm for body and soul, for sure.
Laura Horn on color, or colour:
Have a wonderfully colorful week, and thanks for reading!
Love, Kris