I love the desert rain when you can see it falling from a distance – sometimes the air below being so dry the rain never reaches the ground – the effect known as virga.
#1409 Desert Virga. Watercolor collage on foamcore, 7.5×5.5″ in mat to fit 10×8 frame. $45.
Contains the haiku:
Desert virga falls,
precipitation transforms
into a thin veil.
Last week I went to the monthly meeting of the La Mirada Art Club to talk about my work and demonstrate part of my process for them. I was fortunate that one of the members agreed to take some pics of me working while I was assembling the refractured watercolor.
Here’s the empty room, just when I’d set up.
After having watched me brutally hack up my painting, I start by assembling the horizon.
I usually am looking at the sky the ‘right way up’…..
…and I usually start with the top of the sky….
Now it’ starting to come together.
Sliding some deeper blue under other pieces.
Well folks, that’s all we have time for tonight.
This is the layout that I created at the demo, but I just picked up the pieces without marking their places.
This is the final product
The poem in it reads:
Dawn leaves me speechless
These gold and turquoise jewels
precious beyond words.
Last night I went to the reception for the La Quinta Museum suprise show ‘Local Color’. This show happened because the planned show of Generation Z artwork and musings turned out to be a much physically smaller show than anticipated and the museum suddenly had a lot of bare walls. A little social media work to local artists to bring in a piece first come first served quickly fixed the problem.
The lady in the black dress bottom left is Alana – the gallery owner at sm’Art studio in La Quinta. Finally caught her on camera! Behind her is Michael Angelo (Hernandez) who also sells work there. Yes, my work hangs next to that of MichaelAngelo!
Nice of the museum to paint that floating wall to match my painting. Shame about them not putting up the sign I gave them that wrote out the Shakespearean sonnet written for and painted into the painting.
I’m thrilled to see that my favorite color is going to be ‘color of the year‘ as advised by Pantone. Anyone who has passed my house on laundry day can attest to the favorite colors at this house. (I have a washing line, not a dryer. Why would I want a dryer? I live in a dryer.)
An interesting aside in the linguistics of color: when I’m teaching about the color wheel, I mention that the secondary color between red and blue is often referred to in artistic circles as violet. Purple/violet is one of those colors that have two names – one from the German “purpurrot” and one from the French “violet”.
A friend passed along this video about words for colors, and how words for colors develop in different languages. It reminded me of a friend of mine, Gordon, with whom I was having a discussion about some coworkers who had sat across from me at a meeting wearing fuschia, chartreuse and magenta blouses which in a row, were quite visually difficult to look at! He looked blank at me and said ‘I’m a guy, I got blue, red, green, yellow… nothing more complex than that!’
For those of you who have taken my Painting for Absolute Beginner’s class, you will have heard me talk about the origins of French Ultramarine.
Recently, there was another blue discovered. Or perhaps you could call it invented, I guess it’s unclear as to whether this blue would ever occur in nature. Personally I think it should either just be Yinmn blue, as everyone is calling it now, or Mas blue, after the original chef. What do you think?
I’m looking forward to it being available in watercolor, acrylic and oil.
Three things I tell my students, is that it is important to not lick your brush, drink the paint water or to wash the brush out in your wine (/coffee). Primarily this is because of the heavy metals in some of the pigments. Flake white was stopped being produced when it was discovered that lead isn’t good to eat. Cadmium isn’t terribly good for the digestive system either, but it is a metal that produces awesome reds and yellows from different salts; my chemistry doesn’t stretch to complete comprehension of the quinacridone range, but when you know that phthalo (you pronounce it ‘thallow’ – isn’t English wonderful!) blue’s full name is phthalocyanine blue, you might get a hint as to why brush licking isn’t advised.
But science comes to the rescue of art with replacement colors for the cadmium range that don’t contain the nasty wonderful cadmium! Liquitex isn’t my usual brand, but if Golden haven’t started introducing them by the time I’ve used all the cadmiums I currently have, I’ll definitely be giving them a try. Looks like this is only for acrylics at the moment, but something like this will likely catch on once the ban on cadmiums can be enforced because there’s a viable alternative.
Until I’ve completed the move to cadmium-free cadmiums though, don’t lick my paintings either.
If you are color blind or have a color blind friend, you have probably been in a situation where you argue with one another about the color of a particular object. Well, this video by #Mind Warehouse discusses how color blind people see the world and explains the causes of color blindness. The video also explores…
#1202 “One with the sky”. Mixed media on panel, 36×24″. $1000.
This painting had several levels of inspiration. First, a good friend of mine, Sheri Cohen remarked that things with hearts sell well (they do, I’ve sold two paintings in mats with heart shapes very quickly). Second, not everyone has a color scheme in their home or office that works with regular ‘sky’ colors, so I thought I’d do something more abstract, color wise. Third, just reading how much pollution is in the world.
The following poem is painted into the painting:
One with the sky
What if we nurtured the world
the way it nurtures us
What if we are one with the sky
What if we understood our lives
are as fleeting as storms
and watch the clouds pass by
Came across this article from one of Artnet‘s regular emails that I get. I’m looking forward to trying this new blue – ‘YInMn blue’, though I think there’s still time to rename it to something more pronounceable such as ‘Mas Blue’, ‘Subramanian Blue’ or ‘Oregon Blue’.
Skyscapes for the Soul - Jeni Bate 