Monday, June 11, 2012

Printmaking in Spain and Birdparks in Singapore

Pink flamingoes and green lizards

and red passion fruit flowers
 The last days of my week in Singapore, has made me think about some things.......
The tropics, is a constant source of abundance, here everything grows, and is bigger, greener, more vivid in color, until it kind of takes over your field of vision....
this for me, is so much more noticeable now, that I am back in much more restrained in color scale Spain...... "restrained in color scale", I hear you ask, which part of Spain is that????
Andalucia, by dint of being under the sun the whole time, has the full palette of ochres, siennas, yellows, whites in all it's shades, muted to midnight blues from dusk through the night, with splashes of color, a glint of hibiscus, the swirl of a dress, ruby red wines and bright green peppers, but it is all enhanced, meted out to you in portions that makes them so much more palatable.

As you might have noticed, personal opinion rules, but my eyes, get so full, I can't see the forest for all the trees in the tropics, I can't sort through all the shades of over greens..... so heading back to Spain, full of good Asian food (another chapter) is a relief......

As an artist, does the place you live, reflect the colors you prefer, or is it the other way around?
Is that why I feel so at home in some places and not in others, because the visuals feel natural to my inner color scale, could this be why, now that I am back, in Southern Spain, in my own studio, a place that has such a strong connection to me, I am having to "clean out" all my cupboards artistically?

Getting rid of all those colors that were very nearly "forced" on me, is proving to be a tiresome process, not boring, oh no, but it is hard work, it is like finding your way back to something you have only seen glimpses of the last couple of years.
I am, for the almost first time, doing prints in one color, and they are of course, to a full color artist like me, entirely new, and work for me in a different way. So all of a sudden, relieved of the color, I see images differently in my head, my own inner visual language is being updated, and it feels like wonderful progress is being made..... I know, that flying in to Malaga airport my eyes will take in the landscape, drinking it all up and storing it for future use.


1 comment:

  1. Wow, it sounds as if you're setting off on a new journey of discovery... Monochrome (I don't mean b&w) is a challenge if you normally use full colour, yes!

    I think I know what you mean, about being so saturated by the brightness, that you can't really "see" things. And I do believe that each of us has a personal "colour set", where we feel happiest and most at ease - personally and artistically.
    Interesting to read your view on the tropical colour scheme; I have just spent a day at a workshop, run by Mia Leijonstedt (where I made something fab, but that's another chapter too!). I was reading some of her art blog yesterday evening, where she was talking about a similar thing. She spent 4 years living in Dubai, where colours are so different from Finland or England. There's a fab post there, about Gold as "the fourth primary colour" - perhaps you would like to read it? http://leijonstedt.com/general/creative-inspirations/gold-the-fourth-primary-colour. Also there is a later post, which talks about the greys of Finland.
    Perhaps we are all most creative in the place we feel is "home" - whether that is where we were born, or grew up, or the place we have a natural affinity for.
    I certainly have my own "comfort palette", where the colours are what make me most at home with my work. Trying to make or create outside of this can be very uncomfortable; the book I liked least of all I have made so far, was someone else's colour choices and so very outside my own normal range.(but heigh-ho.. you have to make what the customer asks for - and she was happy!)
    Glad you had a good time - and that you are glad to be home again, in your lovely studio. I am sure you find it as restful an environment as I did. Happy Creating and Experimenting, Mariann! X

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