Skip to main content

Words and colors


  




   I am a huge fan of words and the many shades of meaning between words. I also love to describe and name my art pieces according to their color group. This is why I was delighted to find a lovely chart called the color thesaurus by Ingrid Sandberg.

     Seeing the color thesaurus brings up the question “ why would I describe a jewelry piece as white when I could paint a imaginative image in the reader’s mind if  I call it eggshell, porcelain or chiffon? After all, if you’ve ever strolled the aisle of paint colors you know there are a zillion shades of white.

     Once a friend asked if I would come help her decide a color to have her living room painted. Being a student of color and an ambitious professional artist, I agreed to meet her in her home. All the way over to her house I was drilling my mind with everything I could remember about colors and their psychological effects. I got to her house and she showed me the room, then presented several swatches of paint samples she had considered. To my dismay, all the paint samples were WHITE!! I’m thinking to myself, she had me come all the way across town, missing a day of work in my studio, for THIS? Yeesh!

    We looked at each color, considering it for her walls, and I started to see how each white offered its own effect and mood. We even made a separate trip to the paint store to consider more options of white.  The effect she wanted was warm, welcoming and quiet.
We discovered there is a big difference between pearl, alabaster, snow, ivory, cream and cotton, to name a few. Some whites are too clinical, others too stark. Our color search became a project that required more energy and focus than I ever would have thought.

A few weeks later when I visited her in her newly painted living room, I was pleasantly surprised by the warm and inviting feel of the room. We definitely chose the right white!

At first blush some of the paint films I peel and upcycle into jewelry have very little interest. At other times I look at the dried paint and am reminded of my friend’s living room. It was just white,  after all, what’s the big deal? Here’s some of my recent favorites and their descriptive names:






Carmel bracelet



Dove earrings 



Dove necklace



Cafe au Lait necklace 


It’s all about words and colors, and what is evoked in the mind.

For more information or to purchase a 
Parts of Art piece, visit my online shop here. 
















Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Paint and Palettes

          I’ve always been a lover of paint and paint palettes. I vividly remember the excitement I felt opening that rectangular tin filled with round cakes of watercolor paint in elementary school. I was hooked! From that point on, I have wanted to explore and express within the inviting purity of paint.          In 1988 I had a beach side shop where I hand painted women's clothing. I was using acrylic paint in abundance. One morning I had cleaned my palette off, and had peeled a large colorful piece of variegated and textured acrylic paint from it.  Some friends of mine came into the shop (actually it was my minister and his wife). During our brief conversation, I showed them the peeled up paint and said, “This is too pretty to throw away, but I don’t know what to do with it.” The husband said, “Oh, you should cut it up and make it into jewelry!” We all laughed about it. It was like "Yeah right, I should try ...

Winter Work

        Now that my show season is over, it's time for what I lovingly call winter work. Winter work is studio time. It's when I light the fire in the wood stove and sit down at the drawing table and/or easel, both of which are pulled close to the wood stove. It's winter work because when the weather cools off and the leaves fall, the studio is the most inviting place in my life. The warmth of the fire and the smell of the wood and the blank slate on the easel are what inspire and motivate me to work.        At one of my shows I bought this glorious coffee mug from Paige @rockbottomceramics. It sits on top of the woodstove and keeps the coffee warm for hours.  It's a studio staple.     There is purposely a blank canvas on the easel, or in this case, a smooth panel which will eventually be gessoed and painted with an expression of light through leaves. The blank canvas is self care. It's a sign of hope for my future. What will go on ...

The Clearing, Revisited

     I've been talking a lot about the importance of having a muted palette, meaning very little color.  But lately, I've wanted to add color to some of the paintings that I did over the last few years. So that's what I've been doing. I just added color to this piece. It was called The Clearing, and it was a very monotone palette. It was actually one of the favorite paintings at my shows. But you know, it just didn't sell. So I decided to take a breath, (a couple of breaths actually), and re-work this painting, add color, and actually change the path of light in the painting.        So what do you think now? I kind of like it! I like the new light coming through, and I like the blues that are in here now, that didn't used to be, and the light browns and yellows. And I like this little trunk, that gives you a place to sit when you're at the clearing of the woods. A limited edition print of the original Clearing is   available here.  ...