New favourite colours

Do you have a favourite colour combination, just recently, or one that you keep returning to?

Lately I’m a bit obsessed with the colours “Transparent Red Iron Oxide” and “Alizarin Crimson Hue” from Golden. They look great together and make a nice burnt orange too when mixed. I’m making up swatches and samples when I’m not just adding them directly to various projects.

My other two favourites are their Teal and Indian Yellow Hue. Not necessarily together, but they do mix.

I’ve never really gotten over my predicament of loving all the colours, muted, festive, earthy, primary, dark, light. So by making swatches when I’m a little bit stuck (after all, at this stage even my paintings are a kind of swatches) I get to work through the different palettes I’d like to use and sort them into themes instead of veering off wildly to the right and left between each canvas.

I try to buy cheaper paints (Winsor&Newton or Amsterdam) when it doesn’t matter, because while I really like the Golden range, my budget does not. But sometimes you just can’t help it, like this instance of two small sample tubes I tested of the colour Green Gold – guess which one I’ll reach for the most:

pukegreen

I also like that Golden indicates on each shade how transparent it is, because I have a thing for glazes. Just thinning a paint is not always an option, because at some point the pigment gets too diluted which affects the lightfastness.

On my good days I finally seem to be getting into a good routine where I play with my paints until there is no more room on the wall or table, then sit and weave while everything dries. Or write something. I love how I can sit here and just look up to ponder my next move, everything spread out to see instead of cluttering up a dark living room.

artbooks

How I wish these things could have been my job! But of course I’m so slow and unoriginal that I wouldn’t keep up with expenses anyway. (which is why I show you a cluster of books, not finished paintings) “Do what you love and the money will come.” Right. What if your favourite thing in the whole world was eating chocolate and napping?

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14 thoughts on “New favourite colours

  1. You make all the colors look wonderful. I can imagine that simply making the swatches is satisfying, seeing them all together. Who need finished paintings. As fro getting paid to eat chocolate and nap, I hope you share how if you discover it! (I think it might involve some writing self discovery books about what you learned while napping or something.)

    1. I’d settle for getting paid to do the other things or just one, in fact napping is quite boring in the extended version. šŸ˜‰ Or how about getting paid to investigate all these topics as I do on the blog?! Totally awesome…

      Ordinary professions have always felt like drudgery, no intrinsic motivation whatsoever, which is why I’ve never managed to settle in any one specific market. For someone like me, bookish that I am, university would have just been a way to accumulate a massive debt.

      1. Now, it seems like getting paid to dabble in creative pursuits is more likely to generate income than napping. We just have to figure out how. I am still thinking book. Look what Martha Stewart has created for herself by cooking, sewing, crafting and making everyone else look and feel inferior because they can’t accomplish it all! I feel sure that you can do better than that. šŸ™‚

        1. Oh goodness, I’d settle for just paying the running expenses that I have now, no need to build an empire! But you’re right, and I have in fact pondered the book idea more than once. Only problem is that you run out of time sometimes and books are not done overnight. It would certainly be a tolerable way to do a living, I think I was made for sitting in a quiet library corner, reading and scribbling. Spent way too much of my life unsuccesfully trying to learn to be like proper people. Question is, don’t you have to be a people person to SELL those books once they’re cooked?

          1. I suppose you have to at least go out and talk to people, if not be a people person. Until you get famous, then you just have to show up once or twice on a talk show and they line up to buy the books. I am just not sure how to get from what you do now to that. šŸ™‚

          2. I was thinking more along the lines of some people having personalities that make them popular, even online, and I do not seem able to mimic that “girlfriend routine”. I’m more of a facts type than chirpy smalltalk perhaps?

          3. Well, I am pretty sure others with your same inclination have been able to do it. First up, though, is sorting out what the book is about. šŸ™‚ then we can work on your”voice”. šŸ™‚ But your blog is very friendly and chatty, so I think you under-estimate yourself.

          4. P.S. the difference being, if you paint pretty pictures good enough to sell, you can be almost as ornery as you please, just flash them all over the place until people pay attention. šŸ˜‰

            I could be wrong.

          5. Thanks for your encouragement! šŸ™‚
            It’s one of those situations where I could regret not having 1000’s of followers, I mean, I’m happy with my little regular crowd, but to SELL I guess you need the masses. And perhaps also a way to gauge interest in your chitchat.

          6. Hmmm. So, to get that, you need to get to be more proactive in garnering interest, which is where the extravert-people person stuff comes in. Putting yourself and your blog out there, commenting and liking anything remotely related so that people find you. Takes all the fun out of the little blog for sharing with friends, I know.

            Not sure how to really jump from a few to thousands, though. Maybe find blogs which do have that kind of number and ask for tips?

  2. Love, Pia, that teal and yellow and also the combination created. My grandmother ( who was also a textile artist) could spend hours playing with color. I don’t think she ever felt that time was wasted with her exploration into color, I’m sure she applied it to her work when needed, but mostly I think she felt completely absorbed in the process and delight of exploring the possibilities.Makes sense, she could linger looking over a growth of moss while walking in the woods, savoring that special green. Color is a gift, our ability to consider it deeply is a gift, you and my grandmother are one in the same this way….Enjoy your gift and the delight it brings you, I say! And thank you for sharing it with us!

    1. Thank you. And yes, your grandmother and I sound very much alike in this respect, right down to the moss pondering and admiration.

      P.S. and not just the colour, the texture, the delicate and intricate construction, a micro forest!

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