Color Lab for Mixed-Media Artists

52 Exercises for Exploring Color Concepts through Paint, Collage, Paper, and More

Deborah Forman

• Publisher: Quarry Books
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781631590641
• eBook ISBN: 9781627887663
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: Art General

Create the very best mixed media with 52 inspiring exercises!

Strenthening your understanding and use of color will make your mixed-media art shine as you complete 52 labs that span painting, collage, drawing, assemblage and more.

In Color Lab for Mixed Media Artists, color is explored through multiple lenses-nature, history, psychology, expression-as you work through 52 exciting and approachable projects that explore the infinite potential of the chromatic experience.

Artist and color-theory expert Deborah Forman provides you with techniques and instruction. These materials and labs focus primarily on paint and collage, along with experimental projects for book making, sculpture and installation. Work your way through the color spectrum, using the steady beat of color as the guiding framework.

Don't be intimidated by color--understand how it works, what shade, tint, and pure color will work for your project, and how to select, mix, or pair colors. When you're done, you'll have 52 personal, meaningful, outstanding, and colorful projects and the inspiration to create many more!

"Deb Forman's book is a welcome addition to my studio book shelf. The exercises provide the novice with valuable information on techniques and materials combined with the confidence to explore their own intuitive creative path. For the experienced artist the exercises offer an opportunity to engage with familiar painting mediums in fresh new ways. I would recommend this book both to novice artists just starting out and established artists seeking to reinvigorate their studio practice." - Neal Walsh, Painter and Gallery Director at AS220

"Deborah Forman is a fantastic teacher. She is able to bring her myriad talents to bear in the classroom by transmitting the joy and pleasure she takes in her own artistic practice to her students, who are at many different points in their own creative journeys. She is incredibly generous with her ideas, and honors the integrity of all of her students by encouraging experimentation, tenacity, and compassion as they develop their own skills as artists." - Dr. Karen Carr, Humanities Professor, RISD

"Deborah Forman's Color Theory course was inspiring, exciting and informative. She encouraged her students to push their experimentation with color to the limits which resulted in beautiful palettes that I never dreamed I could create. Overall, this class was a wonderful experience and gave me great insight as to which direction I want to take with my own artwork.​"​ - former student

UNIT 03 BLUE

BLUE IS A COOL COLOR. IT LIVES IN THE RECESSIVE SPACE OF SHADOWS. It has associations with equilibrium, peacefulness, and calm. There is a vastness to blue found in the expanse of the sky and the sea. Blue can also represent an otherworldly enormity: a hushed emotional space that we explore in this chapter through the mystical worlds of Marc Chagall and contemporary artists. We will investigate the history of this coveted hue of the ancient world, from the indigos of India to the brilliance of Egypt’s faience.

LAB 15

CHAGALL BLUE DREAM IMAGERY

Feathers in Bloom, Marc Chagall

MARC CHAGALL WAS A BELARUSAN-BORN ARTIST WHO WAS VERY INFLUENTIAL IN THE RISE OF SURREALISM IN LATE NINETEENTH- AND EARLY TWENTIETH-CENTURY EUROPEAN PAINTING. His canvases and stained-glass works are filled with dreamlike imagery that combines animals, mythological and religious allegory, and his memories of the village landscape of his Hasidic Jewish childhood; always with it is the otherworldliness of romantic love. He uses a deep, pure-spectrum blue to create a jewel-like dark and hushed space in which all of these elements tumble together.

MATERIALS

images to use in artwork

substrate (Note: Although any will work, here, I used heavyweight paper.)

palette (any medium):

- ultramarine blue

- cerulean blue

- Prussian blue

- burnt umber

- cadmium red light

brushes

Coup au bord de mer, 1956

TIP

Incorporating burnt umber into your mixtures will help soften the brightness and pure intensity of the blues.

GETTING STARTED

1. Collect images—real or imagined—that you want to incorporate into your painting. Here, I have used an image of our cat Coco with a landscape from Vermont (figs. 1, 2).

Fig. 1

Fig. 2

2. Layer the images into your substrate in a way that defies a sense of usual gravity to create a nonsensical space. Begin to layer in your color with this palette, being mindful to keep the overall darkness of your value tones. From the ultramarine to the cerulean, you should see elements of purple and green tones emerge (fig. 3).

Fig. 3

Blue Coco, gouache on paper

“In our life there is a single color, as on an artist’s palette, which provides the meaning of life and art. It is the color of love.”

–Marc Chagall

LAB 16

TRANSPARENT BLUE HAND SHADOW

Shadow Play, acrylic on paper

THIS PROJECT IS BASED ON THE COMBINATION OF THE CALMING, ETHEREAL POTENCY OF BLUE WITH THE FLEETING, IMMATERIAL QUALITY OF SHADOWS. In this way, the content and the p...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• Getting Started
• Unit 01 Red
• Unit 02 Yellow
• Unit 03 Blue
• Unit 04 Green
• Unit 05 Orange
• Unit 06 Violet
• Unit 07 Black and White
• Unit 08 Color Systems
• Bibliography
• Resources
• Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• About the Author
• Photographer Credits
• Index
• Dedication
• Copyright Page