A while back, I signed up an online workshop called Color Beyond The Basics taught by Julie Prichard and Chris Cozen. Although I’m starting out a bit late, I’m so happy to be a part of the 125+ people learning together online and discussing explorations in color. I’ve never had formal training in color theory and have always found it all a bit intimidating. I seem to naturally have very different preferences in color, super bright as you can tell from the yellow scheme of my blog or perhaps unsuspectingly combinations that look good to me anyway…but I don’t really understand the whys of it all. We are starting from zero in the class, so it’s really been eye opening for me to just stop and notice the color all around.
I’ve also gone ahead and done some research online, trying to read up about color inspiration and color combinations from the masters. There’s definitely great resources online, but having Julie and Chris available to ask whatever silly question I might have really really helps. Online workshops are the next best thing to real life workshops, which don’t come by often here in Italy! Although at some point I would love to be an apprentice for some of the craftsmen here, talk about cool…one day! I started taking a lot of pictures around the house of color combinations that inspire me…also playing around with going RAW with my camera as well…
That little cute cactus is from my 4-year old niece who wanted to cheer me up when I arrived home from the hospital. I had two other succulent plants that sadly died this winter – it’s been so humid here in Tuscany and it seems root rot got them! Perhaps full fledged cacti will be able to live through my black thumb skills!? Either way, I just love the styling of the plant in the wooden bucket with the complimentary purple flower decoration…all so country chic to me.
Now I’m off to finish off my color swatch library, painting squares in an old grammar book, hehe…it’s pretty amazing to see the differences in the various paints I own and how mixes change the transparency and quality. I wonder how far I can go with the mixing, so many to do! I just started doing some simple skintones, but the possibilities are endless. Hope you have a great Monday and don’t forget to stop and notice the color around you and take it in as inspiration!
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4 Comments
I do love the idea that you used the old book to do your swatch exercise in! I did finally finish my swatches, wow it took a long time but was worjth doing…
I’m looking forward to what’s next with our class with Julie and Chris, aren’t you?
Hi Becci – an old grammer book…won’t need that now! It does take forever seemingly to do the swatches and I am super excited about the class too…so much to learn!
First off, wishing you a speedy recovery. And thank you for a great post and the links on color. As a self-taught artist myself, I also find color and color mixing a bit intimidating. Glad you found the online course useful. I’m also thinking of enrolling something similar but with emphasis on ink. Cheers and have a great day!
Thank you for your kind thoughts…I’m totally getting better now…woohoo! There seems to be a lot of online courses, they are super fun and helpful, especially since I’m in Italy and it’s hard to find in-person workshops of that type. I wonder if there’s a mega list of artsy e-courses online!?