My final project in my abstract painting class was to produce a four panel color portrait based on an object from nature. I chose a piece of rose quartz (pictured below), because 1) I knew it wouldn’t change colors over the three weeks we were going to spend working on the assignment, and 2) I like the color pink (in the art I create and acquire) more than the autumn color palette of fall leaves or the deep greens of Pacific Northwest trees.
Pulling out four different color representations of my object was challenging, but I did it. I focused on different parts and features of the stone, like the purplish gray tone of the darker spots, the choppy white bottom of the quartz (that I represented by applying paint wet -on-wet with a palette knife), the milky, shiny shades of pink, and the single small matte area of the stone devoid of all shine.
The assignment was based on the work of painter Anne Appleby, who uses color to express what she observes in nature. Although it was a great lesson in color mixing (my colors were mixed from Cadmium Yellow, Cadmium Red Light, Ultramarine Blue, Lamp Black, and Titanium White) and even though I appreciate the subtleties, like the bit of yellow background layer peeking through the top right panel, I started to get bored with the project and was eager to return to my own mix of bright colors and found images.
Here are the final photographs of two other paintings that I created in this course and two new mini-collages I made. I’ll be listing them for sale soon, but in the meantime you can email me if you’re interested in purchasing them. The top one is 24″ x 36″ and the square is 24″ x 24″.
Here are two square mini-collages that I did recently. The top one is 4″ x 4″ and second is 3.5″ by 3.5″. Both were created with just three elements.
I’m looking forward to exploring more new work soon. Have a great weekend! xo