colors – Mixy's Art Blog

Reinvention

A few years ago I created a year long project, dedicating each month to a single colour. Beginning in January with red/purple – that gorgeous magenta I keep falling back into – I cycled my way month by month through the primary/secondary/tertiary colours, ending the year in Red.

Ever since I’ve had the desire to follow up on this and reinvent the idea.

So while I haven’t been over here in the world of Ephemeral-Gecko-ing, I’ve been busying myself on a new project ….but you will have to wait until tomorrow for all the details….

Meanwhile, here’s what the 12 colours in 12 months adventure looked like:

something familiar going on…

We’ve all got our own way of categorising, organising, ordering our worlds about us. And we often aren’t even aware of this until we encounter someone whose ways differ greatly from our own.

For me, it’s by colour. (no shit…really?)

Back in a previous life when I was an office bunny who shuffled papers and rattled at a keyboard all day I sought out opportunities to invent new systems I could colour-code.

I’d spend any spare time buried in the stationery catalogues, choosing folders and files and highlighter pens.

What I came to realise much later on was that I just had a thirst for colour and creativity that was going unquenched.

Beyond that, colour is the defining visual attribute I’ll notice over any other: He’s the guy in the blue shirt, it’s the house with the red paintwork, the shop with the green & yellow signboard … I don’t know any of their names, but I usually know what colours they are.

It occurred to me today, as I edited these images from my current journal to show you, a habit of mine to spend a time with a group of colours.

I revel in their company, their character, the memories they muster and the feelings they stir up.

When sated, I can move on, visit a different range of the spectrum.

I never know which colours will appear next, or how long I’ll be in the company of my current companions. But while we’re together, they will seep into aspects of my day without me even realising.

I put these images together, here I am in the realms of purple and a little to either side, and I felt a pang of familiarity, a sense that something’s closer than I realise…

I looked down at what I’m wearing….

Oh yeh… I see what’s gong on here!

wishing

Just as a little aside from other makings, Not quite a scrap book, not quite a mood board… I’m calling it my Wish Book These are some elements for pages serving to crystalise in my mind the hopes I have for the near future… Delighting in the way they find their places together unplanned (such is my style!) these are the colors and shapes I am running towards the textures and lushness the future starts here! 😀

words and colors

If you’ve visited here before you’ll have to noticed two of my favourite things are words and colors.

So dying a dictionary seemed the obvious thing for me to do.

editDSC_3130 — Flamboyant through to Flat, multiple ink stains

30 years ago this month I began high school.

30 years ago? Lordy!

editDSC_3123 — ink soaked paper napkin squashed between Shun and Side

Equipped with the essentials dictated by the school, I now owned a Pocket Oxford Dictionary.

editDSC_3143 — from Irk to Irresponible. Coffee painted on with teabag.

(At over 1000 pages and a good 2 inches thick, the average pocket size of an eleven year old child negated its title.)

editDSC_3135 — Lure to Machine. Dripped inks and dye water.

Nonetheless this book has travelled with me through the decades.

editDSC_3132 — Abbreviations to A. Squished inky paper

editDSC_3126 — Repay through to Reproach. More inky goodness.

Battered, dog-eared, with scribbled notes in the margins here n there…

editDSC_3128 — from Pylon to Quandry. Squashed strip of inky paper

… the spine went first but now it’s cover has separated totally from its papery wordfilled heart.

In it’s new incarnation – a colorful version of the former – it will one day become collage ingredients.

editDSC_3131 — Encode to Engine. Colorex inks

As an aside, I sometimes catch a glance of myself in my art room, as if from an outsiders perspective. I’m ironing torn, stained scraps of paper. Phrases like ‘not doing anyone any harm’ in bemused but sympathetic tones echo in my head. I smile. They just don’t understand. Anyway, I do it cos I have to and it makes me happy. Nuff said.