In my lifelong obsession with the study of color, I have
collected a number of wonderful quotes from creative
artists I admire. From Mr. Monet: "Color is my daylong
obsession, joy, and torment". From Mr. Gibran: “Let me,
O let me bathe my soul in colours; let me swallow the
sunset and drink the rainbow.” But this one from Mr.
Chagall is my favorite.
My main challenge was
finding the appropriate setting for his wonderful words.
In the midst of working to complete a huge stack of
Twenty-Six Seeds homework (!), I visited a friend in the
hospital. While waiting for the arrival of the elevator
to get to her floor, I looked down and found the
inspiration I needed! A wonderful star shaped pattern on
the tile floor that would feature my color wheel
perfectly!
My goal was to lay out the colors precisely as the quote
prescribes: adjacents and opposites. The first layer are
adjacents; colors which live in harmony with their
neighbors. |
The second layer are the lovers; opposites above and to
the right of each complimentary color of the first
layer. The third layer of the wheel is a mixture of
those two opposites, mixed with white to illustrate the
beauty of their neutrals.
The piece is done on a white, round piece of 24"
handmade, deckle-edged Twinrocker paper. The next
challenge was setting off the colors and the quote with
a color that would magnify their differences,
particularly the neutrals. So, I arrived at ivory black.
This color was painted around each color and
painstakingly (neurotically!?) painted around the hand
drawn Romans caps. The white of the words is the white
of the paper. They are the negative shapes of the piece.
I loved the idea of the quotation having absolutely NO
COLOR AT ALL! :)
Thus is the life of the calligrapher: you get a crazy
idea and then can't lay down the brush until you find an
end. I could title this piece "Four 00 Brushes Die For A
Good Cause!" |
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