Thursday 7 July 2016

Soft Summer's Light and colour inspiration




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Soft Summer's Light   acrylic on board 20x20cm   ©2016LisaLeQuelenec



A while back whilst reading blog post by Sherrie York I chuckled to myself. She was in the middle of one of her exquisite linocuts and had realised that she had mixed the exact colour of ink to match the shirt that she was wearing. This is certainly something that has happened to me more than a few times.

The post reminded me of a time many moons ago at college when a tutor asked me why I had picked a certain colour combination for a repeat pattern design. It was quite a combination - dusky pink, chestnut brown, and bright vibrant turquoise and orange! I replied that I didn't have a clue, there was no reason I just happened to mix them. It was only when I got back home to my student digs and went to the kitchen that I saw the combination in all its retro lino, ceramic tiles and Formica glory staring back at me! I guess the décor was so familiar that I had stopped seeing it. My environment subconsciously influencing my palette is something that I have noticed happening a lot over the years.

This painting is another example - I only realised when I had finished it. I had consciously been looking at these particular shells for inspiration and referring to these pages in my colour notebook.




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Colour notes ©2016LisaLeQuelenec
seasidestudiosblog.blogspot.com
Shells ©2016LisaLeQuelenec



Then I realised that I had also been deciding between these  Farrow & Ball  colours for a decorating project....



Farrow & Ball Dix Blue no.82, Green Blue no.84 and Tersea's Green no.236



...it has been a difficult decision as I love them all.... there may be more than one DIY project in the pipeline. ....ssshhhhhhh don't tell His Nibbs... ;o)


You can read Sherrie York's post here.

2 comments:

RH Carpenter said...

I had a teacher once who said we all painted the colors we liked the most and asked us to look at our painting and then what we were wearing - turns out a lot of us in class were painting with colors that were also in our clothing! So I guess we just love certain colors and gravitate to them. I LOVE your seascapes and could not choose between those samples, either - perhaps use them all!

Lisa Le Quelenec said...

It's funny how colour preference is so subconscious isn't it? I look at what I am wearing today and it is all dark blues just like the storm sketch from yesterday... Thank you about the painting!