If you’re feeling adrift in between places, in between times, join me for a dreamy watercolor interlude in between blue and green.
“I did not know how to paint or even what to paint, but I knew I had to begin.”
― Margaret Atwood
In Between Places, In Between Times.
Well hello, fellow twilight zone dwellers. Are you feeling as betwixt and between as I am?
Last week we stepped around to a new month, so it’s time to shift attention to the next bit of the color wheel.
This month is all about the delightfully fresh aqua tones of turquoise & teal, the in between place that’s not quite blue and not quite green.
Here’s a little dreamy interlude of watery watercolours, I hope it inspires your creativity, or at least gives your thoughts a place to rest for a few minutes.
“Twelvty” 12 Colors in 12 Months
Every month this year I am making a series of pieces in just one color. At the end of the year I’ll combine them into one big multicolored work.
I’m sharing my process throughout this adventure here in this blog. (So far this year I’ve explored Yellow, Yellow-Green & Green)
I’d love for you to join me. TWELVTY is open to everyone, and better yet, it’s free!
Sign up for my newsletter to find out more and get your free TWELVTY guide ebook.
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Sometimes I find my painting experiments take me to unexpected places. And the results aren’t always what I’d like them to be.
“Art is in all the details.“
— Christian Marclay
Little Steps
As I type this, for context, we’re on lockdown day 1 in the UK. Early days in the unfolding story of 2020.
It seems more poignant than I could have predicted to be talking today about the little steps along the path to an uncertain destination.
The context I had in mind was about creating mixed media art in a single color. And saying it now feels trite and superficial.
But, this is here to take or leave as you choose. It might serve as a distraction, or a metaphor, or just some visual music to soothe a few minutes in your day.
“The true secret of happiness lies in taking a genuine interest in the details of daily life.”
~ William Morris.
In life, in art, the details are what I’m focussing on right now.
Especially when using a single color, it’s the little details that bring a piece to life, adding character, dimension.
Details in a neutral color (black, grey tones, white) break up the intensity of a solid field of one hue. That’s exactly what I did here.
Above all, doodling is a low-mental-bandwidth activity that seems to dissipate angsty monkey mind chatter.
You don’t need a plan, just follow the lines and shapes. Use little marks, dots, scribbles, whatever shapes take your fancy. For once, don’t look at the bigger picture, just take a little area and dance the pen about. Doodle until you’ve had enough and then set it aside. That’s all there is to it!
“Twelvty” 12 Colors in 12 Months
Every month this year I am making a series of pieces in just one color. At the end of the year I’ll combine them into one big multicolored work.
I’m sharing my process throughout this adventure here in this blog. (So far this year I’ve explored Yellow & Yellow-Green)
I’d love for you to join me. TWELVTY is open to everyone, and better yet, it’s free!
Sign up for my newsletter to find out more and get your free TWELVTY guide ebook.
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Sometimes a series of simple actions – paint smeared and dolloped onto paper, folds, slices, arrangements – can add up to something new with a curious charm you’d never have anticipated.
Painting, I think it’s like jazz.
Brian Eno
One part of this year long color a month adventure I really enjoy is discovering new ways to play with the same patterns.
Really simple patterns – we’re talking fundamental building blocks here – the squiggles, the dashes and dots. And one of my faves:
Stripes & Lines
How many ways can you make a line on paper?
Aside from drawing or painting…
Lines can be straight and wavy, and a bit of both.
Consider tearing or cutting.
Experiment with folding and pleating
Layer pieces together and see the shadow of a partially stuck down shape form another line.
Simple is not always easy, as I explained yester-post. But sometimes it actually is.
Sometimes a series of simple actions – paint smeared and dolloped onto paper, folds, slices, arrangements – can add up to something new with a curious charm you’d never have anticipated.
welcome back to my messy desk 😉
“Twelvty” 12 Colors in 12 Months
Every month this year I am making a series of pieces in just one color. At the end of the year I’ll combine them into one big multicolored work.
I’m sharing my process throughout this adventure here in this blog. (So far this year I’ve explored Yellow & Yellow-Green)
I’d love for you to join me. TWELVTY is open to everyone, and better yet, it’s free!
Sign up for my newsletter to find out more and get your free TWELVTY guide ebook.
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You’ll get an email to confirm you’ve signed up and are human. Sorry, only humans (and their cats) can join. Check your spam folder cos sometimes the good stuff gets swept in there by mistake. Check with your cat too. You know it’s what they expect.
Sometimes I find my painting experiments take me to unexpected places. And the results aren’t always what I’d like them to be.
“The path isn’t a straight line; it’s a spiral.
You continually come back to things you thought you understood and see deeper truths.“
— Barry H Gillespie
Funny how, no matter how many times we circle past the same landmarks on this spiralling journey, the same things can appear new again and again.
This is the fourth time I’ve taken on the year long color a month adventure, and with each iteration, each color is establishing a familiar pattern.And still, each time, this surprises me.
Green
Moving around the color wheel from Yellow-Green to Green, stepping from green-ish to full on green,once again has felt brought with it a familiar sense: it’s an amplified sense of something oppressive and stifling.
And with that, a little confusion.
The first time I wondered if it was just my mood of the moment, outside life reflecting back in my studio practice, but it’s returned each time, so I suspect there’s more to it than that.
Hidden Links
Every color has connections and associations, some commonly accepted and some more personal to the individual.
Rolling meadows and fields, lush long grass, deep forests with winding paths with their curious rustlings (usually squirrels). These are all things I love, and I’ll instinctively seek refuge here when the modern world gets too frenetic.
I think it’s something primal that connects the color green with a sense of soothing tranquility.
And yet none of those feelings, which I’d expect to accompany a month of green painting have turned up. Just the opposite.
All this led me to wonder if the problem lies in the synthetic nature of green paint. Maybe when my unconscious brain sees so much green but doesn’t sense any chlorophyll, it gets agitated. (when it comes to landscape painting, there are a bunch of recipes for natural greens that don’t involve any readymade green paint. But I digress…)
Maybe, maybe not. I’m not here to dig out a reason, I’m here to seek a solution. I’ve circled back around to a lesson I picked up early on in TWELVTY:
When single colors are too intense and overwhelming, dilute the intensity with tonal contrast:
Darken the darks and lighten the lights – right the way up to black and white if need be.
Leave white space, add white to desaturate the color.
Water down ink or paint to build up delicate layers, increase intensity in places but leave ‘quiet’ places.
Begin with black or darkest green background, add elements of brighter, lighter green.
Pull color back by adding water to wet paint or ink, dabbing & wiping with a rag or sponge.
Simple is not always easy.
All that said and done, I don’t find holding back on color easy.
One way around this is to paint across a few pieces at once, setting pieces aside before they get too covered and moving along to the next one. Sometimes I’m a bit heavy handed, but I know I can always go back to and tweak the tones with white or black once they’re dry 😉
With that in mind for some first layers, let’s play.
Join me next week to find out what I did with these bits of greenery next.
“Twelvty” 12 Colors in 12 Months
Every month this year I am making a series of pieces in just one color. At the end of the year I’ll combine them into one big multicolored work.
I’m sharing my process throughout this adventure here in this blog. (So far this year I’ve explored Yellow & Yellow-Green)
I’d love for you to join me. TWELVTY is open to everyone, and better yet, it’s free!
Sign up for my newsletter to find out more and get your free TWELVTY guide ebook.
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As we begin a new month I’m stepping round to the next color in the wheel in the year full of color project. Twelvty this month is exploring Yellow-Green.
“You can do anything you want to do. This is your world.“
— Bob Ross
Like a lot of folks these days, I avoid using plastic as much as possible, especially the single use kind, but still it finds ways to sneak into my home and my life. This stuff can’t be recycled so I make sure as much of it as possible gets involved in my art making process before it’s inevitably binned.
And it was with this in mind I came across a new way to make painted surfaces uniquely pattered, and super shiny too!
I’m sure to be revisiting this way to play again, there are so many degrees of shininess, texture and thicknesses which make different patterns.
The first thought I had when I saw the effect in the yellow-greens is how like glossy leaves it looks. So just right now I want to dash off and cut out leaf shapes and collage me a big ole shrubbery or something. … But I must finish this post first!
It’s a super simple process:
A thick-ish layer of acrylic paint on paper.
A plastic or polythene bag laid out on the wet paint surface.
Smoosh and squish about a bit to stir up the color and get it to stick to the plastic.
Squidge it up in places to make little ridges and bumps and stuff.
Wait to dry (I left it overnight)
Gently peel off the plastic to reveal deliciously rippled surface and shiny bits.
I’ve saved the plastic to reuse again – some paint got stuck so I figure there will be interesting effects using another color with it next time . Watch this space!
This is how my first experiment panned out:
Every month this year I am making a series of pieces in just one color, so at the end of the year I can combine them into one big multicolored work.
I’ll be sharing my process throughout this adventure here in this blog.
I’d love for you to join me. TWELVTY is open to everyone, and better yet, it’s free! Sign up for my newsletter to find out more and get your free TWELVTY guide ebook.
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You’ll get an email to confirm you’ve signed up and are human. Sorry, only humans (and their cats) can join. Check your spam folder cos sometimes the good stuff gets swept in there by mistake.
Sometimes I find my painting experiments take me to unexpected places. And the results aren’t always what I’d like them to be.
“I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way–things I had no words for.”
— Georgia O’Keeffe
Sometimes I find my painting experiments take me to unexpected places. And the results aren’t always what I’d like them to be.
It’s no secret I mostly create this stuff in a haphazard, directionless fashion. I like throwing color around. I don’t much like planning my art. There’s plenty enough opportunity outside the studio to be responsible and ‘adult’. When I’m making art it is – for the most part – spontaneous messy fun.
Generally I keep going until I have a result that I like, and stop there. Of course there are small regretful moments of taking something too far, but it’s only paint on paper and the remorse soon fizzles away.
sometimes moving paint and color about makes for something like this, and I’m happy to leave it be. But not always.
When a piece gets stuck or stale or I just don’t know what direction to take it in next, I set it aside to rest.
And then there are other times, when more layers of color just don’t feel like the right next step and impatience won’t let me leave it to rest. I’m compelled to make it into something else.
At times like this I’ll often take the scissors to it. Cutting it up and rearranging the pieces takes the adventure in a whole new direction.
There are all kinds of cutting up – with scissors or a craft knife, tearing up, die-cutting and punching out possibilities to make collage bits for remixing and reassembling, but today I’ve got something else for you:
Paper Weaving
This works best with lightweight cardstock, watercolor paper or heavy cartridge paper. Lighter weight floppier paper might be possible, but I suspect could become infuriatingly fiddly.
Use straight lines or wiggly ones, vary the spacing, overlap the pieces.
In my usual manner, I made this up as I went – adding more strips to already woven bits and then filling in some spaces in between later. I don’t know how instructional this video will be – but you might like to use it to spark some ideas.
When all else fails cut it up and make something new with the bits.
Every month this year I am making a series of pieces in just one color, so at the end of the year I can combine them into one big multicolored work.
I’ll be sharing my process throughout this adventure here in this blog.
I’d love for you to join me. TWELVTY is open to everyone, and better yet, it’s free! Sign up for my newsletter to find out more and get your free TWELVTY guide ebook.
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You’ll get an email to confirm you’ve signed up and are human. Sorry, only humans (and their cats) can join. Check your spam folder cos sometimes the good stuff gets swept in there by mistake.
As we begin a new month I’m stepping round to the next color in the wheel in the year full of color project. Twelvty this month is exploring Yellow-Green.
“Colour is my day-long obsession, joy and torment.”
— Claude Monet
Yellow-Green
As we begin a new month I’m stepping round to the next color in the wheel in the year full of color project. In Twelvty this month I’m exploring Yellow-Green.
This is the first of the tertiary colors we encounter in our journey around the colour wheel: these are the intermediates, the not-really-one-nor-the-other.
When it comes to playing with yellow-green as a single color, it becomes like a dance between it’s color wheel neighbours.
watercolor & ink on gesso on watercolor paper
Painting on Texture
There are so many different combinationsand ways to add color to texture.Here are some I like playing with a lot.
Gesso (clear or white), matte gel medium or white acrylic paint all make for a good base layer, and all give slightly different effects. Try covering the whole piece, or leave places bare for contrast
When this layer is dry you can add even more texture by crumpling and folding the paper, breaking the surface of the gesso
Do experiment – tell me which you like best!
I like to agitate the surface with a plastic card before the gesso sets to get those lovely tree bark patterns with peaks and ridges and organic wiggly, wavy lines.
I’ve had equally good results dabbing at the wet surface with a plastic bag. I shared a demo of this in a previous episode, but for this post we’re jumping in at the point where this is done, and the paper has dried.
Adding Color
The color I used was a very watery watercolor paint in yellow + green drawing inks (‘chartreuse’, ‘olive green’, ‘grass green’). Any water based color will work – I always advocate the use what you have principle – any yellows and greens that aren’t too blue-ish will work for this.
Version One: I gave the whole piece a wash of light, thin, watery color then added drips and drops of stronger color.
Version Two: Ink drips first onto dry gesso then watercolor dropped on top.
Lifting and tipping the paper side to side encourages the color to run around in the textured surface, so pigment settles in the valleys and shows up the patterns.
Where the wet color puddles I dragged it about with a paint brush, linking the pools together for the color to flow between.
Explore all the ways to hold and move the paint brush – left handed, right handed, by the very tip of the handle – let it hop and skip across the surface – try with eyes closed – twisting and flicking color about – dance the brush in time to music or a rhythm in your head.
Here’s how my first layers of color over gesso began…
Yellow-Green, ink and watercolor on gesso on paper. Layers on layers on layers!
Next post I’ll show you a way I like to use painted papers – especially the ones that haven’t gone the way I would have liked!
Every month this year I am making a series of pieces in just one color, so at the end of the year I can combine them into one big multicolored work.
I’ll be sharing my process throughout this adventure here in this blog.
I’d love for you to join me. TWELVTY is open to everyone, and better yet, it’s free! Sign up for my newsletter to find out more and get your free TWELVTY guide ebook.
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You’ll get an email to confirm you’ve signed up and are human. Sorry, only humans (and their cats) can join. Check your spam folder cos sometimes the good stuff gets swept in there by mistake.
As we reach the close of this month, it will be time to step round to the next color in the wheel. Before we move along, I want to show you what where these adventures with yellow have taken me and what I do when art is misbehaving, uncooperative & tricksy.
“Mere color, unspoiled by meaning, and unallied with definite form, can speak to the soul in a thousand different ways. ”
― Oscar Wilde.
As we reach the close of this month, it will be time to step round to the next color in the wheel.
Before we move along, I want to show you what where these adventures with yellow have taken me.
And I’m going to share with you what I do when art is misbehaving, uncooperative & tricksy.
Because, sometimes art needs to rest.
(just like we do).
Creative work sometimes gets weary and sluggish, uncooperative or just plain troublesome (just like we do).
Knowing when to persevere through the resistance, and when to send the art away to quiet shelf or drawer is not always an easy call to make.
Something I really like about TWELVTY’s one color a month discipline, is that at the end of the month I put away everything I’ve made. It rests until I reach the end of the twelve color cycle and then I’ll see it again with fresh eyes.
And y’know – it always looks better after a rest.
Now I want to let you into a secret….
In all the TWELVTY projects I’ve made – especially that very first 12 color art journal in 2012 – although I really enjoyed the making process, I couldn’t see the finished result as art I liked for a long while. That first book sat unlooked at on a shelf for more than a year, and only when I revisited it did I properly ‘see it’.
I’m writing this for everyone who’s making something and feeling a little underwhelmed by the results.
It might just need to rest.
As I type this to you now, my first episode of one-color-fun is closed.
I’ve a few pieces I could call ‘finished’. And then there’s a big ole heap of bits that are just beginnings – sketchy, experimental, or little scraps that may or may not find a place to belong later.
In isolation they don’t look all that, but when I see them together as a collection, experience tells me there’s potential that could emerge, only after they’ve had a rest.
Shh… go to sleep little art bits.
Not so bad & Not so good
It was fellow artist and online friend, Tammi Salas, who introduced the idea to file away part made and unfinished art in this way:
In my studio I have two big file boxes: One labelled “Not so Bad”. One Labelled “Not so Good”.
messy desk 🙂
It doesn’t take a whole lot of discernment to choose which box, and it makes for an elegant solution to so many studio dilemmas and judgement calls.
This is a resting place for art that needs to recuperate from being harried and hustled, berated and bewildered.
(I’ll write more about these boxes and their contents another time).
These are the boxes I’m using now. I recently upgraded from shoeboxes and floor-heaps. Any container or flat space will work just as well.
So, all that said, here are the results of what has happened on my messy desk through this first month of TWELVTY 2020. Everything that’s yellow is here, the not so bad and the not so good (and the little bits in between).
The next color in this journey is yellow-green. Think gold-green, avocado & olive, turtles & toads, luscious limes, chartreuse. Mmmm!
Leap with Mr Toad & me, into our next color adventure, beginning Feb 1st 🙂
Every month this year I am making a series of pieces in just one color, so at the end of the year I can combine them into one big multicolored work.
I’m sharing my process throughout this adventure in this blog.
I’d love for you to join me. TWELVTY is open to everyone, and better yet, it’s free! Sign up for my newsletter to find out more and get your free TWELVTY guide ebook.
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“I simply do not distinguish between work and play.”
― Mary Oliver.
Yester-post we looked at first layers. Now I’m building on those foundations with some variations of these themes.
These are the techniques I use in my art journals and mixed media pieces. Whatever I’m making I like to work quickly and without any planning. It’s even easier without the distraction of choosing colors to use:
The first piece I pick up + the first paint or ink that comes to hand + the first tool I grab. It always surprises me how serendipity brings new combinations of patterns together.
While color is restricted, mark making tools are not. I don’t limit myself to paint brushes and *proper* art tools (although I like using these too).
Like a lot of folk these days, I’m trying to opt out of plastic use as much as possible, but it still turns up uninvited through packaging and whatnot. We know that re-use is more efficient than recycling.
For all that is bad about plastic, the up side to its indestructible nature is it makes very durable art making tools that are easy to keep clean and seldom need replacing. I’ve had some of the stuff I use for years and you’d never know.
These are a few of my favourite mark making things:
A hair comb.
Plastic cards – old bank cards etc.
Bits of bubble wrap, plastic bag and packaging.
Plastic netting – the type you get oranges and lemons in.
Plastic forks, knives, spoons etc. (especially forks)
Old pens that have run out of ink (ball points, felt pens, markers) – and their lids for perfect little circles!
Knitting needles.
String, feathers, elastic bands.
You’ll likely see all these things (and more) come up in my process videos over the coming weeks and months, they all make their own characteristic marks, some more predictably than others.
Next layers made in Yellow for TWELVTY 2020
I’m beginning to combine these pieces now with collage, fabric and stitching, They’re evolving from scrappy bits of paper with smears of paint and scribbles into curious little pieces of art.
This heap of part done bits and pieces is on my desk right now.
Yellow in progress.
My adventures with yellow finishes at the end of the month, when I skip round to the next color in the wheel. Next post I’ll show you the *finished* {for now}stage, and explain what I mean by this too 😉
Every month this year I am making a series of pieces in just one color, so at the end of the year I can combine them into one big multicolored work.
I’m sharing my process throughout this adventure in this blog.
I’d love for you to join me. TWELVTY is open to everyone, and better yet, it’s free! Sign up for my newsletter to find out more and get your free TWELVTY guide ebook.
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“Start where you are, use what your have, do what you can.”
— Arthur Ashe
The magic of mixed media art making comes from the layers.
First layers can be marks made in paint or pen, they can be collage or textural. Sometimes the whole surface is covered, sometimes it’s just a few marks to break up that beginning expanse of nothing.
scribbles and doodles break up the space on the blank paper.
When you keep in mind that what goes down on the first layer will likely get covered up, it’s much easier to feel free to experiment.
first layers don’t need to be pretty!
I don’t strive to make something beautiful, I just play. Letting one idea feed the next and seeing where it leads.
Experiment by combining patterns of mark making on different surfaces – thin copier paper reacts very differently to paint and ink than watercolor paper, or tissue paper, or fabric. Investigate some of the infinite possibilities!
I like having a few pieces on the go at the same time. Ideas cross pollinate between them, and I can swap from one to another while the layers dry.
Crumple or fold paper so the color can seep into the creases.
Consider how many ways there are to apply color to surface. Paint brushes are just the beginning, some of my favourite tools are not conventional things you’ll find in the art supply store 😉
Watch how the first layers of the first color of Twelvty began.
First layers made in Yellow for TWELVTY 2020
Every month this year I am making a series of pieces in just one color, so at the end of the year I can combine them into one big multicolored work.
I’ll be sharing my process throughout this adventure here in this blog.
I’d love for you to join me. TWELVTY is open to everyone, and better yet, it’s free! Sign up for my newsletter to find out more and get your free TWELVTY guide ebook.
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Mixy's Art Blog 