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: pantone color painting

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!

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....

Portrait of an Artist

Well, it's only been a few hours since my last post. But I wanted to show you the portrait I did of a fellow artist as part of the Portrait Exchange Challenge over at "Different Strokes from Different Folks".

As I said in my last post, I was struggling to find the time to paint this. I actually planned to do only the underpainting in acrylics and then switch to oils, but decided to stay with acrylics. So while this portrait does not have the lush oil finish, it feels fresh and almost like a sketch.
One thing I did not really master in the last two years is taking a photograph of my artwork.

So here's my portrait of Vern.

"Vern"
Acrylic on canvas bord,
28x30 cm

And since likeness is always 'good to have' when painting a portrait, I'll post the reference I got from Vern - and thank you for the great photo to work from!

Happy New Year!

Two Years Later....

Well... the last sentence in this blog was "I'll update again once I'm back...".

I did not spend two years away, but somehow did not get to update this blog for such a long time. But many things kept me from blogging. Work life has been busy, I bought a flat and moved this summer. And at the beginning of this year I finally found my own studio - together with my good friend and painting buddy Sonja. So now I finally have the place to work on bigger pieces!

And in the summer - just before moving - we had our first exhibition and it was a great success.
Just to show you some of the newer paintings - click here!


Hopefully things will settle down a bit in the new year and I'll get around to posting again. Probably not a painting a week though...

One thing I meant to do for a long time now was taking part in the great experience that is "Different Strokes from Different Folks", a blog by Karin Jurick. Karin posts a photograph about every two weeks, and everybody who wants to can paint from this photo in his / her own style. Digital pictures of the artwork can then be sent to Karin and she posts it on the blog. A great way to show how different folks see and interpret the same photo and how different the results can be.
This year end challenge was sending a self-portrait photograph to Karin who sends you a photograph of someone else to paint! Definitely a challenge!

I got a great picture to paint, and was getting desperate to find enough time to paint it. I'm glad to say I finished in time, all that's left is to get a picture of it and send it to Karin. I'll post it here as well of course.

The photo of myself that I sent to Karin was very similar to one that I had used before for painting a self-portrait. I'll post this one here now, you'll see what my 'portrait challenge partner' did from his photo once I post the link to it.

Here's my self-portrait (first try, there will be more I'm sure...)


I'll post again soon - but first: HAPPY NEW YEAR!

On the road again....

I know I haven't been around lately - after I got back from France things have been rather hectic and then I left again, this time for the US.

I spent one week attending a business workshop and now I'm on vacation - one week in Montana and another on the road back to New York, painting on the way.

So I'll update again once I'm back...

Technorati tags: US - travel