This week I have been working on several paintings that are mostly black and white. Interestingly what I have learned or rather relearned has to do with color.
In the beginning of making a painting I am not thinking too much about color. I tend to think more in black and white – making decisions based on the lightness or darkness of the shapes (value). In these striped paintings, all the shapes are either very black (the absence of color) or very white (also quite colorless).
Today I started to bring color into them and right away I noticed these little colorful dots I was making looked very rich and vibrant. And then I re-remembered why… Color always looks especially wonderful when it is surrounded by something that is not colorful. In this case, the colorful dots are sitting upon black and white stripes.
The more not colorful my paintings seem to get, the more easily I am able to make a statement about color on them. It is quite surprising. When a small amount of color does appear, it looks so… well, colorful. And because it is such a surprise visitor to the painting and is so different-it becomes especially noticeable.
And in Art, noticeable is a good thing.
This is, of course, obvious, but I am amazed how often I forget this simple idea… The absence of something makes that something more like itself when it finally does appear again. Absence really does make the heart grow fonder.
I see this all the time in my life – it happened today in fact. For example, when I go without baked goods and instead just keep having kale smoothies for breakfast – when I do fall off the wagon and finally eat a bran muffin it tastes especially fantastic. And I don’t normally like bran muffins that much, but the one I had today was sublime.
For some reason this principle is easy to overlook in art making. The idea of giving up something in order to make a small amount of it seem like a lot is a very powerful and poignant idea.
It touches upon discipline, understatement and restraint. It is what makes good things great. In art for sure, but also life. It is what turns an ordinary bran muffin into the best, by far, part of your day.
How does color show up in your art or life?
4 Comments
Hi! I’m
Nicholas Wilton
the founder of Art2Life.
With over 20 years experience as a working artist and educator, I’ve developed a systematic approach that brings authenticity, spontaneity and joy back into the creative process.
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My first memory of color was looking at an old wooden green bench in my backyard. I believe the reason the moment stands out is because of my lack of information about color. I’m not sure I even knew the word green.
The “green” seemed to jump off the bench and fill my body, pure joy.. I still feel color at times and lots of green still appears in my work
Nicholas,
Funny that you are using black and white this year. One of my New Years painting resolutions is to paint using black and white. Absolutely, have no desire to use any color. I am one of your students. Is there a chance you can do a workshop focusing on black and white paintings. drop me a line. I’d love to visit you and view your new work..
Sheryl Tealdi
The workshops and actually all my teaching really relies on seeing color as black and white-seeing the values of lightness and dark to make decisions-not the color. So in a way I already am teaching a black and white class–in fact most of the time a portion of the workshop, usually in the beginning is spent doing black and white only. Hope to see you at another workshop in the future!
I remember those first exercises in B&W at the workshop. They terrified me! And I paint all the time! But it nudged me to think in a new way. In the end it was very liberating. In fact, almost every day draw on something I got from the Workshop. It was so valuable for me.