Frederick Heidel's method based on a color hue observation

Frederick Heidel was one of my art instructors at Portland State University in the the early 60's. His observation on color was that colors of about the same range of darkness placed together on a painting relate to one another in lively interactions.  Form and depth can be created without dark to light drawing.

I  am exploring his process of making somewhat of a grid, playing with color not as a chart but in a non-academic way, allowing a feeling to lead my way.  Soon these non-objective paintings take on shapes that suggest something familiar to people.  Such is the case in this full sheet watercolor, "Playful, Cad Red to Viridian.

Experiencing spring color through watercolor painting

The top painting is Kona, Hawaii color. The framed painting is Fredrick Heidel's, my instructor in 1962. The other paintings are about what I see from my window. Like my first assignment for oil painting, I feel wonderfully involved just looking outdoors and trying out the colors on my paper to see which colors please me.  As he taught, the colors are loosely on a grid. Frederich Heidel said, "Do not make academic exercises."  So I am in the process of seeing how the colors not only look but also work together in an expressive way. 

Three and a half hours of painting at JJ's house rental

With a limited number of colors and time, I had a few false starts.

Jenny Jacob's stairway to the beach.

The problem of painting a hole in your middle ground, I thought would be easily overcome, because of the design of the roped railing leading the eye across the sand..  Well, for awhile the sandy beach needed doctoring to make it readable.

Watercolor painting at Jenny Jacob's studio window.

After the third night at JJ's Beach House Vacation Rental in Yachats, Oregon the paint flowed and  I had the feeling that the paintings painted themselves.  Of course the energy of the house was at play.

My Hawaiian color palette # 3

Hawaii pallet abstract #2

My attention was divided between three aspects of painting.  One was relating colors one next to another. I asked how additions of compliments or white would change the way the colors looked in relationships with other colors in their neighborhoods  One neighborhood was the blues and the other warmer  roses and oranges.. The other was watching the paint react on its own. No use for masking to force the paint what it will do. I tried very wet pools of color that dried with a darker line along their edges.  Another natural paint characteristic is the blooms that occur when one part fof the pool dries faster than another.  When one pool comes in contact with another the pool with the most water will flow paint into the thirsty pool no matter how small a little bridge there is between them.

The most important part of making this painting is feeling good about the Hawaiian colors and how them make me feel. This painting is on a full sheet of cold press Arches watercolor paper.

Hawaii color pallet abstract #1

Before our February 4 - 18 th trip to Kailua-Kona, I purchased some colors I anticipated using to paint the surf and lava rocks. This abstracted memory painting has Prussian blue, Naples yellow, viridian, Windsor red and cobalt turquoise. When  I was on location my paintings were realistic and about mood and light. Now at home, I am released from the closely observed representational details. the experience of painting on location is still with me and influencing me.
 In Hawaii I learned to flood the paper with pools of wet color.  It didn't take long to dry even in the humidity. When I did the same at home the color was heavy so I used the shower sprayer on the paper and the edges of the green and Naples yellow lifted leaving the white.  Happy accident!

Water reflection, organic, collages

 A work in progress.

 

Here I have selected scraps of paper that speak to me from my shelves of uninteresting works. It is difficult to throw away old work, but I am disposing a lot of paper especially ones with paint that is falling off the paper. I tried to reconstitute gouache and watercolors and they have failed to have enough medium to adhere to paper properly.

 This is a postcard sized beginning of a series. It looks like  an ocean beach, foam line shape.

Happy New Year

 

 In 2014 I plan to do some more sewing like the dress under the jacquet. Been painting some ceramic plates with curvacious  gray scale patterns upon which I will plan collages on a curves and torn edges.