Wednesday, February 03, 2010

how do you know?

watercolour over acrylic over black gesso on muslin

"try to keep yourself ignorant about colour
try to keep it intuitive
try not to learn what warm and cool mean, what the primary colours are
try to let your colours be as spontaneous as possible"

"How do you know what colour to choose?
The same way to choose what to wear.
Your palette is like your closet."

Both pieces of advice, Barbara Nechis

8 comments:

Jacky said...

I love your natural flow of colours and design...great advice. Thank you.

Jacky

Jeana Marie said...

oh lovely!

good advice...I really get stuck between thinking I need to be more cerebral about stuff and trusting my intuition.

arlee said...

Instinctual is the way i use colour too--but my closet is black and grey :}

Nellie's Needles said...

My philosophy is to study and thoroughly know those color theories and principles AND then to forget them ... at least consciously. Having the knowledge gives power to intuition as well as a source to know how to fix what is not working.

Kay said...

That's nonsense!

Here's an interesting post about the limits of "intuition". http://elizabethbarton.blogspot.com/2010/02/intuition.html

Caterina Giglio said...

great analogy!

Judy Martin said...

Thanks to Kay who sent me over to Elizabeth Barton's blog to read her newest post on intuition.

I do agree with Elizabeth and with Nellie's Needles that it is good - preferred even - to know all those rules.

I use the knowledge I've gained through two university art degrees and 30 years of professional experience - I know I do.

What's hard for me is to loosen up so much that it looks as if I don't have all that background. I have fear.

What I don't want to do is make my students who have started this class in Creative Painting with me, to become hung up on rules. I'm trying to teach technique and personal mythology, skilled application with a mix of folk art - it's really difficult and I appreciate that.

Thank you for all comments. I appreciate those as well.

Jeana Marie said...

yes, I think I interpreted the advice and forgetting the rules and loosening up rather than not learning them at all. Although I feel I'm still learning the rules, and I get stuck.