Color Schmuhler

“The hardest thing to see is what is right in front of you. It’s not what you look at that matters, its what you see." Define isolate edit

Anytime I have created art I have been very vocal about my fear of color. Fear in this case is felt because I don’t have the knowledge of something and experience to push through learning about it. I am great with gray scale, I can work with that. From what Gwen has said in class color can be thought of as in grayscale. There are highlights, mid-tones and darks. Maybe I can mesh this and just SEE it instead of looking for the answer.  I have a desire to KNOW and SEE color for what it is… colors are pieces to puzzles. You would think that since we all see in color and identify objects we see partially because of the colors that they are, we would be more familiar with color. I understand the basics; I get that blue and yellow make green and red and blue make violet. But when I was in class trying to SEE what was in my photos I felt handicapped. I do NOT understand that red-brown has green in it??? I suppose because green is complementary to red that it neutralizes it to brown. I feel like I need to write this out on a blackboard a hundred times and to put it on a recorder on my i-phone to burn it into my brain...

In class, I was trying to see a different way by DEFINING one color and fluting it with other color I thought were in that color… I would EDIT them and I was confusing myself by making it harder than it was. I ISOLATE one color and try “fluting” it and then I forget about the picture and end up with a “pretty” color palette that I like a lot but then it doesn’t match the photo. Gwen comes over and immediately chooses the obvious colors in the photos and I can SEE the color as she is choosing them. I want to learn how to make it that easy… to know that the colors I choose from the photo will relate and be in each other.  The hardest thing to do is to retrain my brain. I really, really want it and I will keep trying.