Dienstag, 26. Januar 2010

The Colour of the Year 2010....

I just came across a post on ‘Bliss Following’ (isn’t that a great title for a blog?) announcing Pantone’s choice for Colour of the year 2010.

Now for those of you who are wondering now, it’s not ‘Panettone’ (which is 'a typical sweet yeast bread of Milan, usually prepared and enjoyed for Christmas and New Year around Italy, and one of the symbols of the city’ and really delicious).

Pantone is – according to Wikipedia - “a company best known for its Pantone Matching System (PMS), a proprietary color space used in a variety of industries, primarily printing, though sometimes in the manufacture of colored paint, fabric, and plastics.” Or according to Mitzi Easley from ‘Bliss Following’ they simply are the color gurus of the world. I like her description better!

For some years now, Pantone has announced a Color of the Year. And the Color of the Year for 2010 is ….. Turquoise!





And since it’s Pantone we’re talking about, the color is actually ‘PANTONE 15-5519’. You can find their press release here.



My first reaction was: Great, I love turquoise! Funny enough I’m even wearing a turquoise scarf today!

And next I tried to think of paintings I’ve done with a strong turquoise accent…. hmm…. i know I use turquoise quite often… hmmm….
The only paintings I could think of were done some time ago and use turquoise as a (muted) background color or simply mixed into other colors. The best example would be my coffee series (Link 1 and Link 2).

So…. the idea for a new series is born! I’d like to do some paintings featuring Turqoise, but also the colors of the previous years: Violet Tulip (2005), Chili Pepper (2007), Blue Iris (2008) and Mimosa (2009) – and of course Cerulean Blue, the color of the Millennium.


What about you? – It would be great to see how other artists incorporate Turqoise in their artwork! Show us what you’re doing!

Technorati tags:


Donnerstag, 21. Januar 2010

Lean on Me

When I started this blog in 2007 I had made a New Year's Resolution to complete a painting a week. Looking back on that year I actually did quite well, I got into the swing of taking the time (mostly on weekends) to paint a small piece in one to two hours.
This was great practice, I learned a lot and really think I improved through this exercise.

But as so often (and I hope I'm not the only one like that) my focus changed from one thing to the next - that's the problem with being interested in many things - and I concentrated on painting bigger canvases, more abstract, and taking more time. Definitely more than two hours once a week.

For this year I hope to be able to combine both interests (and more). So I plan to:
- keep working on bigger canvases in my studio
- coming back to doing smaller, quick paintings
- sketching! (that's a scary idea for me, but I'm sure it'll pay out...)
- and subject wise concentrating on portraits and the human figure.

Sounds good, doesn't it?

This is a piece I finished end of last year. It's a commission by a very dear friend and it's going to her brother and sister-in-law as a wedding gift.

"Lean on Me"
Acrylic on Canvas
80 x 80 cm
I'll deliver it this evening - hope they like it!

Dienstag, 5. Januar 2010

Mamina

Trying to get back into 'blogging mode' I'd like to post a portrait I did some while ago. Since I was not actively blogging at that time it might still considered 'new'...

This is a portrait of my grandmother I did from an old b/w photograph, taken some 40 years ago. It means a lot to me.

"Mamina"
acrylics on canvas panel


I've just started another portrait, probably using oil colours again. While acrylics is 'my first love', I want to get more proficient with oils as well. I do have to agree that the finish and soft sheen of oil is beautiful....