How colors drive my artistic direction and how challenging it is to find the right palette to go with the artwork but basic color theory and mixing might just solve this problem.
The Color of Blood
In any artwork, I always begin with or end up adding red, my favorite color. It felt incomplete without it. Red is ubiquitous in my wardrobe, make-up, home and obviously in my paintings. I even wore red on my wedding. But who doesn’t love this color? It is a strong color—the representation of love, beauty, courage and life, as in the blood in our veins. It's sinful, lustry, passionate—the rouge on your cheeks and lips; the scarlet letter. It commands attention—a warning to the observer. It is the color of emperors, the capes of kings, queens and Superman!
Go-to-Palette
After creating a montage of my artworks, I have noticed the repetition of reds and the cooler analogous hues as well as the addition of gold for that extra pop. After a while, it gets overly saturated. Naturally I began investigating my chromatic inclinations.
Two things I realized: 1. I dislike mixing colors. 2. Neutral or pastel colors are the death of me.
Even though I am fond of seeing artworks that effectively used desaturated tones, I cannot quite imagine creating a similar piece. Having worked as a colorist didn't help much dealing with this conundrum. But I do like challenging myself.
Time to Experiment
As soon as I acquired a set of gouache paints, a medium that is still foreign to me, I researched about the pigments and likewise learned the many ways on how I can expand my palette by just mixing magenta (PR122/PV19), cyan (PW6/PB15:3/PB15) and yellow (PY3/PY74). I began mixing and experimenting—adding more paint until I find the right hue.
I have rediscovered the wonderful world of tertiary colors!
Purple blacks and sage leaves
The resulting image was a tiger in the jungle. I have always wanted to paint this imagery and so why not hit two stones in one go, right? While in the process of creating the piece, I kept reminding myself, “the blacks should be purple and the leaves are sage.” Et voilà! A wide-ranging palette of muted greens, purples and greys. Although it is nowhere near pretty pastels yet, still I am satisfied. It is a start.
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