Materials always at hand? Paper and pencils. Decision time... I love working on black paper. It makes colors vivd just by being.
Cheating? No. Knowledge? Perhaps. And the dancing bruins have been cavorting a bit much lately, so it was time for rest. They, in fact, would take a back seat, so to speak, in this piece. This was a time for Negative Space to shine!
Because I'm seldom smart enough (or too lazy) to do thumbnail sketches of possible compositions, I just grab a pencil and hope that an idea will come. Leaping into the dark end of the paper... Scribble scribble - come on bears. The composition begins on left and proceeds - bear by bear. No thinking - just shapes. It's an odd sized sheet - 7 1/2" x 13." I like working on long and narrow - in fact the very first original bear sketch I did was a group of bears drawn with graphite pencil on a long and narrow sheet of white paper. Remind me to post them someday?!?). O.K. - five bears will fit just fine.
At this point I don't care about perspective - just filling space with shapes. Truncated triangles with ears. That's accomplished. Bring on that COLOR!! Go for The Glow! Starting again from the left side I simply grabbed colors that appear and I know should Pop. And with Spring and Easter eggs in mind - well - you can see where we're going. For a while I debated bringing range of bear shapes out into whole space, but that seemed safe and boring. Just MY thought. So on to the Fun of arbitrarily choosing and using those lovely Prismacolor tones. for some spaces I did choose specific colors, but mostly, if a pencil yelled "I'm Spring!" it was in. Did erase a few bear lines, and each bear is mostly a solid color - deep green, indigo blue, dark red, etc. But the "atmosphere" was where the challenge continued. Some portions are a single color; others, three or four layers.
More choices/decisions? Using ivory, white, or other bright colors to outline areas. Though often using blended shapes I admit to being a frequent outliner... Scribble scribble, blend blend. Final decision - float bear on right in color. why? Just because.
This piece might be a study for more "important" work later on, but for now it stands (sits?) on it's own as a new way for me to work.
Go for the glow!!
Check out my Sue Rowe Studios Facebook Page for previous 30 Bear Challenges? And maybe words or images to inspire your day? Happy Dreary Rainy Grey Spring Day here! This color is about as bright as today is going to get!
Fare-thee-well,
Sue
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