Friday, December 18, 2009

High horizon paintings

I seem to always gravitate to high horizon abstracted paintings for some reason. So I decided to do an exercise where I make a warm up painting on a piece of 140# cold press water color paper which I tear into 8x8 pieces. I can only take 30 minutes on each one. So I've turned to my small supply of pastels to do the warm ups. Doing my usual acrylic painting would take too long to dry between coats. I do many, many layers when I paint and that's why I need at least three pieces in the works. Pastel is so quick and I love the intense colors. I don't love the dust and the need to fix them with a spray. I really don't like the need to frame them either. Some of the paintings below have some acrylic on them but it's mainly pastels.
How do you like the bunny switch plate?

I needed some sort of a color framework to start with and I had recently purchased the Goof Proof color wheel from Bob Burridge. In his mainly monthly newsletters he gives an example of how to use it. So I made a list of examples and when I'm done with the list I'll venture out into other combinations. I seldom use blue and looking at the wall where I hung the paintings I can see a lot of blue. So it's a good exercise in using different colors and finding out how much can be accomplished in 30 minutes too. And pastels are so instant!

2 comments :

Jo Reimer said...

This is a good project to challenge yourself to find more variety in composition and to play with color. I can tell you're having fun, Jan.

Dreamcicle Journeys said...

What a great idea and exercise in the use of color. Thanks for sharing and I like your bunny.