Exploring Colour

In my artwork at the moment I am exploring colour quite intensively. Those who are familiar with my work will be asking "So what's new? All your painting are screamingly loud with colour!" And this has become a pattern I am interested in understanding more. Why do all my paintings end up this way? I seem to be completely seduced by strong colours. At the completion of every new piece I am saturated with the intensity of the dominant colour and vow that my next canvas will be white on white. As coffee clears the nose of the parfumeur, I think of white as coffee beans for the eyes, a cleanser of the visual palette.

I am taking an extensive workshop to help me break out of my penchant for boldness. It comes in the form of a book called Colour A Workshop for Artists and Designers by David Hornung.

It has a series of 16 assignments which are to be explored over a minimum of 16 weeks. Each exercise only needs to be very small, about 6"X 6" to allow the student to move through them quickly. The focus is on experimenting with colour and not the composition, so in the first exercises, only very simple geometric shapes are used.

At the very least it will break me out of my usual palette of colours which will be an interesting and refreshing change.