Project 3 Stage 4 Ex 2 (1)

Colour moods and themes

Last night I sat in front of a fire, curtains closed, glass of wine in hand reading a book and it was called work!  I was looking through The Sketchbooks of Picasso (ed Glimcher and Glimcher, 1986) and really appreciating the skill of Picasso in the light of what I have been learning.  I selected this piece to make my first colour bag.  At first sight the colour range seems quite obvious but on closer inspection and looking with my eyes not my brain the wealth of colour was quite astounding.

Sketchbook no 66, p21
Picasso 

Sketchbook no 66 p21
Piccasso - detail

My threads

I found I needed far more colours of thread than I first thought.

Fabric swatches and threads

I decided that the feel of the work was restrained and subdued (but not calm).  It was linear so I looked in my ribbons and my fabric store provided some swatches the right colours.

I have noticed that the brown is a red/brown and on reflection I think my choice of ribbon is a bit too saturated.





In Picasso's picture it's the brown that stands out and the other colours seem to recede except for the orange/red on the right that jumps right out.  The blue and green are very pale and they provide a harmonious background for what seems to sit on the top.  I can identify two tones of orange; a red/orange and a yellow/orange.  The tones of yellow are adjacent to each other on the colour wheel so they harmonise.  Within the yellow range there are cool colours (lemon) and warmer ones (the orange/red.).

The yellows I found in the Picasso

I have a long standing ambivalence towards yellow generally but I find my view changing a bit.  When I think carefully about it whether I like yellow (or not) seems to depend on what sort of yellow it is and what it's with.  In this case I think it's the effect of the warmer yellows that makes the difference.

I mixed some gouache to see what I needed to do to make accurate colours for this picture and found everything except the yellow needed some white with it.  All of the colours (except the bright yellow) in the piece are unsaturated; that is they are all mixed with something else.








I feel quite content that I've chosen as accurately as I can with the materials I have.



Arnold Glimcher and Marc Glimcher eds, 1986, Je Suis le Cahier,The Sketchbooks of Picasso, Thames and Hudson, London