Speaking of Art Blog

Tulips, Lace and Light, pastel, 11x14"

I recently taught a very rewarding pastel workshop at the Pickle Street School Studio in Hopkins, MI.  Joy Richmond is the artist/instructor/owner.  My focus for the 2 days was on rendering a closeup look at a small group of flowers in the tradition of Georgia O’Keeffe.  We had great fun creating lots of petals.  https://www.picklestreetschool.com/

Pickle Street School Studio, Hopkins MI

Before I left home to drive to the workshop, I dipped my hands into my portable Guerrilla Painter box and made sure I had the correct colors in that box for all the various color areas in my upcoming demo painting, Tulips, Lace and Light.  I keyed my chosen colors in place on the painting. I always keep the closest right-hand compartment in the box empty, ready for putting colors I use for my demo in there.  So, I started with all the keyed-in colors in that corner compartment, and then as I worked in front of the students, I added more colors from the other compartments as needed.

I work slowly, so completing my demo during the workshop wasn’t going to happen.  Didn’t matter.  I like to give my students plenty of time to work on their own projects with my input.  This is how far I got by the end of the workshop.

After coming home, I did NOT start using all my other pastels that are in my rainbow cockpit at my easel.  Why not?  Because my color palette would have changed.  It might seem slight at first, but if I’m reaching for a slightly different shade of each of the colors I’m using, it doesn’t take long for my color palette to totally shift.  So, I temporarily set my portable painter’s box on top of my home stash of pastels at my easel and I continued to use only the colors I took with me while I was at the workshop.

I call it color consistency and I highly recommend it for when you start a painting away from home and then finish it in your home studio.  If you are doing a study away from home and then you start a new painting based on the study when you’re back at home, that’s different.  But if it’s the same painting in both places, then I think it’s really important to stick with the same color palette.  How do I know this?  Did I make the mistake of switching back to my home stash of colors in the middle of a painting one time and learn the hard way that that doesn’t work?  Um, yes I did several years ago.  It was painful.  Lesson learned.  Now I take the time to set up my Guerrilla Painter's box back at home and I finish the painting with my away-from-home colors.  Ah, much better.  Morphing bad, consistency good.