Color Theory/Color Practice

What is your favorite color? I probably go through phases where some colors appear more than others, and for a while back in the day, it seemed like I wasn't using a whole lot of yellow...I wear black so I don't have to think about it...That color is delicious....Prussian Blue. Definitely Prussian Blue...The sheen of a crow's feathers is an oily iridescent black...The sky was sprayed with lavender and orange as I drove across the Causeway...Her eyes were green with speckled ripples of red and brown and gold...

When I was working on my senior project back in the Fall of 1990. Jim Richard, my professor at UNO, saw that the work I had been doing up until midterm had an abundance of color. He suggested that I stop. Get a big roll of thick paper and try eliminating color. Texture, value, mark, medium, there were so many thing to consider that the color was confusing the process. I was so excited about all the possibilities of painting that I wanted to use all the possibilities in each painting. So, for the next couple of months I worked mainly in black and white. And I probably used less color for some time after that. Of course I was using color, it was just relatively speaking, less.

In first grade I was handed a blank pumpkin outline at Halloween. The instructions said draw the stem green and the rest orange. Well, I had the big box of crayons. I also probably didn't read the instructions, or if I did I chose to interpret them in my own way. I used yellow green and blue green and other greens, and I used red orange and yellow orange and I went outside the lines to expand the image. This particular teacher didn't appreciate my interpretation.

The difference between the two pedagogical experiences is that limiting my use of color for my senior project actually expanded my understanding of color and my ability to control it. Whenever I work with very young students, I usually say "go for it!" I then walk around and pull the finished ones and give them a fresh sheet of paper. Color can be like a tool box. Each tool has a time and a place and a use. It is also about how they are used together. Expressiveness can become noise. Jackson Pollock would edit and crop. He was often worried about copying himself. Abstraction, when good, makes color look easy. This is why so many people paint their houses white. It is because a sophisticated color story is not easy. A contractor recently asked me if I wanted white or grey cabinets.

When I work, I don't think about color theory, but when I look I do. Upon reflection, I consider adjustments and nuances of each mark or field and their relation to the othe works in progress. When placing art, the color is relative to its surroundings. Everything effects it: light, surroundings, textures, furnishings, proximity, and spacing. Also, emotions and intuition are involved in how colors relate. Just like how favorite colors speak to a person's personality. Still, black cloths and white walls probably have more to do with choices than with theory. It requires effort and practice to expand a pallet.