Category: 12 colors in 12 months

day 8: 12 days of Twelvty

2017 is my year full of color, the last 12 days I look back at the 12 colors in 12 months that was TWELVTY. Today: Red-Violet

 

Twelvty-Eight: Red-Violet

From maroon to magenta, pomegranate to plum.

 

 

“Mauve? Mauve is just pink trying to be purple.”

~ James Abbot McNeill Whistler,
American Painter and Printmaker, 1834-1903

colorwheelI love color, and I’m fascinated by the way it appears in life, how it interacts, how it’s assigned meaning.

Throughout 2017 I explored color on a much deeper level in a year long visual adventure,  ‘TWELVTY’, a trip around the color wheel exploring one color each month.

I shared the adventure with a group of artists and creatives in the form of an online program. It was the most fun, compiling resources and information on each of the 12 colors.

When we tune our eyes in to notice the colors around us, life becomes brighter and more vibrant.

Each month I played just with the one color the was focus for the month, pushing my imagination to find new ways to create within these boundaries, by adding more single color pages to this mixed media art journal.

Over the last 12 days of the year I want to show you a glimpse of this project.

We began with Yellow, Yellow-Green, then Green, Blue-Green, Blue and Blue-Violet, yesterday we looked at Violet. Tomorrow we’ll step around to Twelvty-Nine: Red 

If you’re interested in understanding more about color, get my ebook A Year full of Color as well as regular monthly updates on my latest colorful antics, delivered right to your inbox:

YearFullOfColorbyPennGregoryR2017_Page_01

Your email is utterly safe to me. It will not be sold or traded for magic beans. I promise.

TWELVTY is adventure you can join too.

By exploring the color wheel and each of the 12 colors, I share my creative process plus a feast of resources about color I’ve collected for you.

You’ll learn about the history of how color has been used, not just by artists, but as part of different cultures around the world. You’ll discover the meanings linked to the colors, how there are connections through the ages and around the world.

There are even playlists of songs and music relating to each of the colors! (I said it was thorough, right?)

In 2018 I’m introducing a new element to TWELVTY – a shared creative project that we’ll work on together as we traverse the color wheel.

Find out more here

penngregoryTwelvty1200x574Registration for TWELVTY 2018 is open now!
Find out more & join here

day 7: 12 days of Twelvty

Over the last 12 days 2017 I’m sharing my year of color: 12 colors in 12 months. Today –
Twelvty-Seven: Violet

Twelvty-Seven: Violet

From plum to periwinkle, vivacious violet & majestic purples.

“Be eccentric now. Don’t wait for old age to wear purple.”
~ Regina Brett 

colorwheel
Color is an integral part to all types of creativity, it influences our moods and emotions, it’s linked with memories. Colors have been assigned meanings and connections throughout history and around the world.

When we tune our eyes in to notice the colors around us, life becomes brighter and more vibrant.

Through 2017 I’ve been exploring these aspects of color in a year long visual adventure: one color each month.

Each month I added more single color pages to this mixed media art journal.

Over the last 12 days of the year I want to show you a glimpse of this project.

We began with Yellow, Yellow-Green, then Green, Blue-Green, Blue and Blue-Violet, tomorrow we’ll step around to Twelvty-Eight: Red-Violet 

If you’re interested in understanding more about color, get my ebook A Year full of Color as well as regular monthly updates on my latest colorful antics, delivered right to your inbox:

YearFullOfColorbyPennGregoryR2017_Page_01

Your email is utterly safe to me. It will not be sold or traded for magic beans. I promise.

Next year I’m revisiting the Twelvty project, but this time with some exciting additions! Find out more here

Registration for TWELVTY 2018 is open now!
Find out more & join here

penngregoryTwelvty1200x574

day 6: 12 days of Twelvty

Over the last 12 days of the year I’m sharing my year of color: 12 colors in 12 months. Today –
Twelvty-Six: Blue-Violet

 

Twelvty-Six: Blue-Violet

Moody-mauvy, midnight-indigo, bluebell & lavender.

 

 

“Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.” ~  Mark Twain

colorwheelColor is an integral part to all types of creativity, it influences our moods and emotions, it’s linked with memories. Colors have been assigned meanings and connections throughout history and around the world.

When we tune our eyes in to notice the colors around us, life becomes brighter and more vibrant.

Through 2017 I’ve been exploring these aspects of color in a year long visual adventure: one color each month.

Each month I added more single color pages to this mixed media art journal.

Over the last 12 days of the year I want to show you a glimpse of this project.

We began with Yellow, Yellow-Green, then Green, Blue-Green and Blue, tomorrow we’ll step around to Twelvty-Seven: Violet 

If you’re interested in understanding more about color, get my ebook A Year full of Color as well as regular monthly updates on my latest colorful antics, delivered right to your inbox:

YearFullOfColorbyPennGregoryR2017_Page_01

Your email is utterly safe to me. It will not be sold or traded for magic beans. I promise.

Next year I’m revisiting the Twelvty project, but this time with some exciting additions! Find out more here

Registration for TWELVTY 2018 is open now!
Find out more & join here

penngregoryTwelvty1200x574

day 5: 12 days of Twelvty

Over the last 12 days of the year I’m sharing my year of color: 12 colors in 12 months. Today –
Twelvty-Five: Blue

 

Twelvty-Five: Blue

awash with all things cool, fresh and blue!

 

 

“Blue color is everlastingly appointed by the deity to be a source of delight.”
~John Ruskin

blue in the color wheel
Color is an integral part to all types of creativity, it influences our moods and emotions, it’s linked with memories. Colors have been assigned meanings and connections throughout history and around the world.

When we tune our eyes in to notice the colors around us, life becomes brighter and more vibrant.

2017 has been a year full of color, an adventure I’m sharing in an online program called TWELVTY.  Every month I’ve been playing just in the month’s colors, and each month I added to this mixed media art journal.

 

Over the last 12 days of the year I want to show you a glimpse of this project.

We began with Yellow, Yellow-Green, then Green and Blue-Green tomorrow we’ll step around to Twelvty-Six: Blue-Violet 

If you’re interested in understanding more about color, get my ebook A Year full of Color as well as regular monthly updates on my latest colorful antics, delivered right to your inbox:

YearFullOfColorbyPennGregoryR2017_Page_01

Your email is utterly safe to me. It will not be sold, eaten or accidentally lost down the back of the sofa. I promise.

Next year I’m revisiting the Twelvty project, but this time with some exciting additions! Find out more here

Registration for TWELVTY 2018 is open now!
Find out more & join here

penngregoryTwelvty1200x574

day 4: 12 days of Twelvty

Over the last 12 days of the year I’m sharing my year of color: 12 colors in 12 months. Today –
Twelvty-Four: Blue-Green

 

Twelvty-Four: Blue-Green

Teal, Turquoise, Mermaids & Peacocks

 

 

 

“A turquoise given by a loving hand carries with it happiness and good fortune.”
~  Arabic proverb

colorwheelColor is an integral part to all types of creativity.

Colors have been assigned meanings and connections throughout history and around the world.

Sometimes these overlap and sometimes they are contradictory. Color is a great metaphor for so many aspects this wildly paradoxical trip we call life.

Through 2017 I’ve been exploring color in a year long visual adventure: devoting myself to just one color each month.

In Twelvty-Four I had the most fun making a series of layered stitched collages, made from dyed paper and fabrics, embellished with beads and buttons and shiny things.

Each month also has a few pages of single color doodles in this mixed media art journal.

 

Over the last 12 days of the year I’m sharing a glimpse of this 12 month project.

We began with Yellow, Yellow-Green, then Green tomorrow we’ll step around to Twelvty-Five: Blue 

If you’re interested in understanding more about color, get my ebook A Year full of Color as well as regular monthly updates on my latest colorful antics, delivered right to your inbox:

YearFullOfColorbyPennGregoryR2017_Page_01

Your email is utterly safe to me. It will be guarded at all times by dragons.

Next year I’m revisiting the Twelvty project, but this time with some exciting additions! Find out more here

Registration for TWELVTY 2018 is open now!
Find out more & join here

penngregoryTwelvty1200x574

day 3: 12 days of Twelvty

Over the last 12 days of the year I’m sharing my year of color: Today –
Twelvty-Three: Green. And green is tricksy!

 

Twelvty-Three: Green

Emerald, Jade & Verdant Viridian!

“They’ll sell you thousands of greens. Veronese green and emerald green and cadmium green and any sort of green you like; but that particular green, never.”
~ Pablo Picasso, 1966.

colorwheelGreen

Color is an integral part to all types of creativity, it influences our moods and emotions, it’s linked with memories. Colors have been assigned meanings and connections throughout history and around the world.

When we tune our eyes in to notice the colors around us, life becomes brighter and more vibrant.

Through 2017 I’ve been exploring these aspects of color in a year long visual adventure: one color each month.

 

Every color has certain characteristics, both in appearance, but also in the way it behaves. This month I discovered: Green is tricksy!

I really enjoyed playing in the colors either side – Yellow-Green & Blue-Green – but Green itself was strangely difficult. Whatever I tried in just green alone stubbornly refused to take shape.

It came as no surprise to me that I enjoyed using Green’s neighbours in the color wheel (the tertiary ‘in betweening’ colors are my favs), but didn’t anticipate Green presenting such unsettlement. Of course there’s always a way to adapt, the projects I began in Green spilt over into the following month and I shifted the colors into blue green.

Meanwhile, back in the art journal, the single coloured spreads continued.

 

Over the last 12 days of the year I want to show you a glimpse of this project.

We began with Yellow, then Yellow-Green tomorrow we’ll step around to Twelvty-Four: Blue-Green.

If you’re interested in understanding more about color, get my ebook A Year full of Color as well as regular monthly updates on my latest colorful antics, delivered right to your inbox:

YearFullOfColorbyPennGregoryR2017_Page_01

Your email is utterly safe to me. It will be guarded at all times by dragons.

Next year I’m revisiting the Twelvty project, but this time with some exciting additions! Find out more here

Registration for TWELVTY 2018 is open now!
Find out more & join here

penngregoryTwelvty1200x574

day 2: 12 days of Twelvty

Over the last 12 days of the year I’m sharing my year of color: 12 colors in 12 months. Today –
Twelvty-Two: Yellow-Green

 

Twelvty-Two: Yellow-Green

From luscious lime to opulent olive: the color of spring time.

“I am going to try to pay attention to the spring. I am going to look around at all the flowers, and look up at the hectic trees. I am going to close my eyes and listen.”
~ Anne Lamott

Twelvty-Two: Yellow-Green in the color wheel
Twelvty-Two: Yellow-Green

Color is an integral part to all types of creativity, it influences our moods and emotions, it’s linked with memories. Colors have been assigned meanings and connections throughout history and around the world.

When we tune our eyes in to notice the colors around us, life becomes brighter and more vibrant.

Through 2017 I’ve been exploring these aspects of color in a year long visual adventure: one color each month.

Every month I’ve worked just in the month’s colors, this month I made a series of textile collages and each month I added some more to this mixed media art journal.

Over the last 12 days of the year I want to show you a glimpse of this project.

Yesterday we looked at Yellow, tomorrow we’ll step around to Twelvty-Three: Green

If you’re interested in understanding more about color, get my ebook A Year full of Color as well as regular monthly updates on my latest colorful antics, delivered right to your inbox:

YearFullOfColorbyPennGregoryR2017_Page_01

Your email is utterly safe to me. It will be wrapped up snug in a blanket until the spring arrives.  

Next year I’m revisiting the Twelvty project, but this time with some exciting additions! Find out more here

Registration for TWELVTY 2018 is open now!
Find out more & join here

penngregoryTwelvty1200x574

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day 1: 12 days of Twelvty

Over the last 12 days of the year I want to show you a glimpse of this project, beginning with….

Twelvty-One: Yellow

Color is an integral part to all types of creativity, it influences our moods and emotions, it’s linked with memories. Colors have been assigned meanings and connections throughout history and around the world.  colorwheelspiral

When we tune our eyes in to notice the colors around us, life becomes brighter and more vibrant.

Through 2017 I’ve been exploring these aspects of color in a year long visual adventure: one color each month.

One part of the adventure has been the creation of a mixed media art journal. Each month I’ve added a few more pages, using just in that month’s colors.

Over the last 12 days of the year I want to show you a glimpse of this project, beginning with….

Twelvty-One: Yellow

The color of sunshine, buttercups & bananas!

 

“A picture painted in yellow always radiates spiritual warmth”
– Wassily Kandinsky

Tomorrow we’ll step around to Twelvty-Two: Yellow-Green

 

YearFullOfColorbyPennGregoryR2017_Page_01

If you’re interested in understanding more about color, get my ebook A Year full of Color as well as regular monthly updates on my latest colorful antics, delivered right to your inbox:

Your email is utterly safe to me. It will be wrapped up snug and nestled with a hot water bottle until the spring arrives.  

Next year I’m revisiting the Twelvty project, but this time with some exciting additions! Find out more here

Registration for TWELVTY 2018 is open now!
Find out more & join here

penngregoryTwelvty1200x574

 

Looking forwards

What’s really beautiful, is within the group of creatives brought together by TWELVTY, there’s such a diversity of talent and such a fabulous range of expression. When you take a subject like color which can be applied to most every medium, it translates such variety of techniques and media and manifests a constant source of inspiration

The What & The Where

Throughout 2017 I’ve been running an online program called TWELVTY in which we explore the color wheel one month and one color at a time. It’s been a fantastic journey (which isn’t over yet: we still have orange-yellow left to explore)

What’s really beautiful, is within the group of creatives brought together by TWELVTY, there’s such a diversity of talent & range of expression. 

From painters to weavers, textile artists, photographers, mixed media creatives and writers. Between us we are much more than the sum of our parts.

When you take a subject like color which can be applied to most every medium, it translates such variety of techniques and media and manifests a constant source of inspiration:

I see that embroidery and it inspires an idea for a photo series; I see this painting and the idea for a video starts to come to life. The drawing which tells a story, inspires a song or a poem.

Ideas are cross-pollinating all over the place!!

When I set out on this adventure at the beginning of the year, I really thought it would be a one-off. But so much has surprised me along the way. TWELVTY soon began to gather momentum, to take on an energy of its own, and it seems like it doesn’t want to end here.

So I’ve made a couple of little tweaks, and I’m excited to present: 

TWELVTY 2018: What’s new?

The structure has shifted:  Instead of each month dedicated solely to one color, we are quickening the pace of the color steps in order to spend a little more time exploring the territory for our color adventure.

This gives us time at the start of the year to get to take a bird’s eye view, get to know the the color wheel, and gather our colors together.

Then we’ll take each segment of the color wheel in a three week block.

At the end of our journey there will be space to consolidate what we’ve learned, and bring it all together.

As well as all the resources I’ve gathered and curated for each color through this first year of TWELVTY, I’m also planning something new!

Something colorful and fun! Something that will bring joy to your inner kid (or actual kids – this could be a family project)

Each color segment will have a step-by-step illustrated guide where I show you ways I like to play with mixed media. You can use these for inspiration, or your own techniques, as in each color we are going to add to our year long project: To create a 3-D Color Wheel!

This will be a resource you can come back to again and again when you ‘re looking for ideas in your creative practice.

We begin the journey in the new year, but registration is open now

I think it speaks for itself that some of this year’s Twelveteers have already joined up for a second trip around the color wheel in 2018!

 I’ve reduced the price this year to make it accessible to as many folks as possible. The cost for the year long adventure is just £97.00 GBP

Wanna hop aboard now? Click right here! 

I’ll post some more info in a Q&A later in the week – so if you’ve any Qs that need an A – ask me in the comments below and I’ll add them in! 

Just some of the colourful antics from TWELVTY 2017!

Be first to hear about my colorful antics, hop onto my email list right here.

(and I’ll send you my ebook A Year full of Color as a thank you for joining)
YearFullOfColorbyPennGregoryR2017_Page_01

Your email is utterly safe to me. I’ll sing it to sleep when it lands with me, and bring it tea when it wakes up.

A life full of color

Some lifetimes ago, a sixteen year old version of me failed to get the place in art school that she’d pinned all her early hopes to.

Dismissed by the grown ups who’d repeatedly explained: ‘being an artist isn’t realistic’ led to years floating adrift from my calling.

(They were wrong. And this isn’t what I do, I’ve come to realise, it’s what I am)

Some lifetimes ago, a sixteen year old version of me failed to get the place in art school that she’d pinned all her early hopes to.

Dismissed by the grown ups who’d repeatedly explained: ‘being an artist isn’t realistic’ led to years floating adrift from my calling.

(They were wrong. And this isn’t what I do, I’ve come to realise, it’s what I am)

A few years ago, rattled by some mid-life reminders of mortality, I finally fulfilled my life long ambition. But being an art student was as far as I’d thought this plan through. After spinning around in a self made feedback loop of regret for two decades, while I loved my time at college, I’d completely lost sight of the purpose.

My confusion was confounded when my course was cancelled after the foundation year. Before I’d time to consider my options my personal life fell apart, as a few weeks later my mum died.

Now I was free falling and had to find something to grasp onto, something simple I could rely on to slow the descent.  

I needed a project to latch my focus to. I needed a subject I could immerse myself in. It had to be something creative, it had to be something colourful.

It just had to be color.

 

 

I hadn’t the bandwidth for anything more complex. I needed colors, but one at a time. No other rules. Just me, a book, and whatever paints and pens and things I had to hand. In just one color. I began with the color I felt most drawn to at the time, which was red-violet, magenta. It was soothing. It was all I had space for.

I took that year, one color at a time, one month at a time.

 

 

After another family bereavement a couple of months into my year long color project, I knew I needed some accountability, some way to keep this project afloat. That’s when I started this blog.

By the end of the year I’d created a this whole book full of color.

 

edit20121211_0251

It’s still with me in my studio as a resource for inspiration – (that’s something I didn’t foresee when I began this project.)

(You can see it page by page here)

12 in 12 from mixy gecko on Vimeo.

 

 

As I showed my book of 12 colors to more of my artist friends, the idea of revisiting a year full of color began to develop. And they wanted in on it too.

So in 2017 I invented “TWELVTY“,  a way of sharing the adventure around the color wheel with other creatives as an online program.

It’s been an astonishing journey, (which isn’t over yet) and I’ve learned so much (more on that in another post).

I didn’t expect to run Twelvty as a program with others again after this year – it’s been all consuming and I had other plans for 2018 – but Twelvty has plans for me too, it would appear. 

So here we are, in preparation for:

TWELVTY2018_800x310

We begin the journey in the new year, but registration is open from November.

I think it speaks for itself that some of this year’s Twelveteers have already joined up for a second trip around the color wheel in 2018!

There are a limited number of discounted places available to folks on my mailing list. If you aren’t signed up already – what the hey?!! – scoot down to the end of this post to add your email before they’re all swooped up!

 

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