Are you afraid of colour?

I click on 'not at all' as I sit here in my Vintage Rose computer room...

the european spelling does give me a mild case of the heebee-jeebee's...

oops, quick amendment.....color/colour/colore/
farbe/cor/χρώμα/etcetera!

My A2k name alone shows that I am not afraid of colors. In early art classes I was introduced to colors that I never even knew exisited...and I love them all :wink:

I am greatly appreciative of colour, especially when it's spelled correctly

I react really strongly to colour, and feel really depressed when surrounded by dull colours, browns, etc.

I am interested to know how you work with colour.....

For example.... Osso, as you sit in your vintage
rose room are you clad in muted tones or
lime green?

What about your paintings.....a restrained palette or a cacophony of colour?

Colour, as in painting, she paints? I'm terrified of it. Too many choices lead to confusion. I LOVE many many artists' use of colour, though!

I put "love it." Color and I have a special understanding.



Whats funny is that my boyfriend fears anything that is not neutral. He wears khakis and black shirts and his room is decorated in shades of grey.

Wonderful Portal, thank you for posting your exuberant painting.

As I sit here, the blazing colours of the Canadian fall are filling each and every window of my home. Here in the forest........ burgundy, lime green, viridian, cadmium orange, lemon yellow, cad yellow deep, scarlet,
alizarian, burnt sienna....

Why are we generally so afraid of colour?

Shepaints, I'm wearing blue jeans and a slightly muted turquoise knit cotton sweater, which is ok because the vintage rose is a little bit greyed out too. But this morning I clashed with the walls, wearing as I did my red and black striped long nightgown.

Some of my paintings are in the a2k gallery, under original art. I can't remember what page... those page numbers change all the time. The colors of course aren't true to the paintings, because the photos aren't. One is particular, Olives and Poppies, is way off, and the ground plane has lots of reddish poppies.

But to answer your question re my painting colors, I mix my paints, don't use color straight from the tube very often. I used to paint figures and they were often colorful, as were the more abstract works I did. I haven't posted those yet, though I've scanned a bunch, which are sitting in the computer at work. With my more recent landscape paintings, I don't try to represent a scene with anything like the exactitude that most landscape painters are interested in - I am more taken by the mood of a scene, even if it is a mood imposed by me having nothing to do with how the sky really is, or what tree might be where. I feel free to change all that. But, I do tend to be intrigued by naturalistic colors in these paintings.

So mine are the direct opposite of a painter who is showing with us now, who uses almost any color, as long as it is bright, and a lot of abstraction, to convey the changing positions of elements and light in one particular location over several months, the location being a creek passing through an area of cliffs and entering the ocean. Her colors are not at all naturalistic, very vivid.

I don't know why other people are afraid of color. Some of it may have to do with your surroundings as you grow up and your training in what might be sophisticated, and perhaps a reaction to what you had grown tired of. Take the color called beige. That can be very elegantly used in home design or the most boring choice possible.

Some colors are not particularly restful. Depends on whether you seek visual serenity or excitement, too.
There have been times when I have felt the reason a particular color attracted me was almost chemical, some visual brain connection that said a cellular Yes!
I tend to remember those colors, but what is favorite may change, as I suddenly get interested in, say, a lightfilled mustardy color....

Who, me?

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...

Colors and the sounds of music. Food for the soul. I was very much afraid of color, thinking that I would have to limit myself to black and white drawings. But color was my liberator. I just started putting colors on paper and canvas and found them to be their own justification.

It depends. When I am working on a non objective piece I love to go wild with colors and forms but I haven't been satisfied with color yet in a representational/realistic piece. I also hate decision making so I like to limit my medium.
JAne

Jane, I think I understand. In representational work I often feel limited in my use of colors by the subject matter--until I remember Gauguin's pink skies. I now enjoy making skies yellow; living in the desert this seem natural. But in non-objective work the only limitations regarding color choice are personal taste and aesthetic principles.

I read a review (by Meg Walker) of the book 'Chromophobe" by David Batchelor....

Batchelor suggests that colour "ends up as being accused
of many things, feared as a consistent destablizer
because it connects with the ("feminine, the primitive, the infantile, the vulgar") or the frivolous
("the superficial, the supplementary, the inessential or the cosmetic")........as reviewed in the Globe
and Mail, Sat. Oct. 9 Book section. pD31

Clearly there is a great difference in how we use colour to create visual statements in our paintings.....for extreme examples consider Monet's
subtle, studied use of impressionistic colour in his Haystacks and the garish, cheap screenprints of Marilyn Monroe by Andy Warhol.

or Picasso's seemingly arbitrary but decorative use of color.

or the elegance of a "black tie" dinner and
the vehement reaction against colouring old
black and white movies.....