Focusing on Color

Color has dominated my last two weeks. It’s been on my mind in many unique and wonderful ways, and the more I learn, the more I realize I have a lot more to learn.

Today, my review of Amy Butler Greenfield’s excellent book, A Perfect Red was published by the Surface Design Association’s online book club. In a nutshell, this is a great red for anyone interested in the history, science, economics and drama surrounding the cochineal dye that originated with the Aztecs. If you’d like to read my entire review, you can find it here.

Earlier this week, I had two fascinating lessons in color. The first was a lecture by David Hornung, offered through the Studio Art Quilt Associates Education Seminar. I kept pinching myself that I was attending a webinar he was leading. Hornung’s presentation on color theory prompted me to buy the most edition of his book Color: A Workshop for Artists and Designers. I’m looking forward to exercising my eye for color. This week was also the first day of my class with Katie Pasquini-Masopust. I’ve long been an admirer of her work and I’m thrilled to be taking her class. We meet once a month and this week Katie spoke about color and line. Our homework exercises for the month are to create four different compositions, within some defined parameters, to gain a better understanding of the relationship between values of complementary colors.

Right now, my pie-in-the-sky dream is to create works that are crowded with color, just riotous colorful celebrations. I know I need to learn a lot more in order to get there. These are just some of the first steps.

It’s been a great week.

You can buy David Hornung’s book here.