Color swatches

My friend Nina is redecorating her bedroom and is thinking about colors to paint her room. In the spirit of this discussion of color (well, it’s sort of about color), I had to scan this. I’ve been meaning to for a while. These are swatches, from one of my gouache painting assignments (G – O – U – A – C – H – E. I’ll get it yet without having to look it up). You test the color you’ve mixed; see if it’s too watery, too opaque. You test making long strokes with the liner brush. Practice practice practice (I hear, "Glaze, Wendee!"). I have no idea which painting this was for. But, there’s a nice sense of fun in the swatch block, at least enough that I decided to keep it around. I keep thinking of doing a line drawing or something to go over it (digitally), but I’m also thinking that it’s pretty happy the way it is.


Which way should go up?

So, I went through my pile of gouache (got it!) boards, and all the little swatch test pieces. I have to say that they’re more fun than the finished assignments (sorry, Richard). I need to mat and frame these, or scan them and use them as backgrounds for ... something. There are some funky color studies for that weird-futuristic-humongously-tall building painting (the Syd Mead wannabe ones. If you were there, you know the assignment), and a dreamy fun periwinkle/navy gradation. Ooooo. I’ll scan them a little at a time and see if I can work them into anything. I had them propped up in a row, on my mantle, before the holidays. I really want to just frame them, though, and put them up on a wall, give them some mysterious name.
Sigh.

Maybe I should crop my assignment paintings into the parts that are actually pretty loose, too, frame them, put them up, and get some enjoyment out of them that way. Or sell them on eBay! Yeah, it's not like I could actually bring myself to chuck them out...

And, oddly enough, there was a start of a sort of homely (wanting to be ‘sporty’) car, on a sort of burnt-orangey banana-colored background. Banana... I think the banana cars are calling again, for just one or two more good, finished renderings. The project that inspired the banana cars, mercifully, might be almost done. If I do those last couple banana cards that I’m thinking of... they will represent closure for that whole mind-numbing episode. Or at least for that particular chapter (knock on wood). Stay tuned.