The 'Colours of Nature' workshops I've been doing of late in Paddington at Percolator Gallery have been most stimulating and enjoyable ... these images are of the first group on June 25th. We started with simple colour exercises that pushed partipants to work with all the colours they normally avoid, re-appraising colours they find uncomfortable or distasteful to work with.
This led to lengthy discussion while we worked on why we develop habitual responses to colours ... what it all means to us... why there can be such strong feeling experiences attached to working with colours... and whether that stops us seeing ... or not. These exercises were the ideal opportunity to rethink much that we take for granted about colour... and the role it plays in our lives ... how we can perhaps create a more dynamic experience of colour ... extending our palette to include more nuanced and complex colours ... at the same time potentially broadening the vocabulary of feeling response in a work.
Everyone was shocked when the class came to an end... the mood was so concentrated and time had flown! In the afternoon we prepared grounds for working onto and layering over the ideas inspired by natural things we gathered to draw and paint. Each person managed to get a good start on these... with plenty to take home and continue with.
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| oil pastels ... merging and blending colours |
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| pushing the colour combinations in new directions |
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| taking something that started simply into a whole new space |
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water colour pencils on the left...
oil pastels on the right ... interesting colour combining! |
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| working with colours not usually employed |
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| around the table |
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magnifying lamp for close observation of
colour and form of the natural objects |
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| textural impresssions |
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| colours not generally used |
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| afternoon... working with paint ...abstracting natural forms |
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working onto coloured grounds and then
adding white colour pencil onto background |
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| pod patterns - ink on coloured grounds |
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| the end of the day... |
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three pomegranates .... mono-print surface with ink drawing over top
... imagining the juice bleeding onto the paper ... ink allowed to run |
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| one persons working idea |
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| composition with small seeds |
