On Colour

I love colour- I appreciate how it can reflect my mood, change my mood, and how I get a little zing of pleasure when I see a surprising colour combination or palette.

I’m not going to talk about colour theory or how to mix colours. There are a million and one articles, books videos on this. Like most artists, I’ve learnt the rudiments of colour theory along the way. It took me a while to be able to mix skin tones, and I am fairly confident with mixing the colours that I need to from a basic set of paints. However, if I’m honest (and it will be no surprise to some) I love having access to convience colours, to neons and metallics - I adore brights, unexpected contrasts, and dare I say it - I kinda love kitsch, even those paintings where the colours are rather jarring or just plain garish. Much like my taste in art, my taste in colour changes too, I might get into pinks one week, the next I’m trying to see which colours can liven up a brown tone.

So this is a brief little love letter to colour- I always feel like ‘I should’ be revisiting my theoretical knowledge of colour, value, contrast, tone, etc. Then I get out a big box of gouache or all the colour pencils, and I just get a buzz from playing around and I don’t want to think about what should go with what. My favourite limitation when stuck is to randomly pick 3 tubes of paint out of the box and just see what I can make with them (sometimes plus white and black).

So here’s to colour- to soft autumnal palettes, moody dark landscapes, fluroscent florals that hurt your retinas, I’m here for it all.

As always, I hope you are enjoying your creative time,

Best,

Sonia