During the first few weeks of my year one at the Academy, I’ve seen an abundance of great art – in fellow students’ studios, at New York galleries, during class lectures. Lately, I am drawn to art that has a kaleidoscope of color. However, during our first-year painting course we’ve had to refrain from loading our palettes with a wide range of colors. Small black and white studies currently fill the studios.
At first, when I learned we’d be using limited palettes for the first few weeks of painting, I was less than enthused. For me, not using color is like a baking without butter or sugar — no fun! I also couldn’t help but think that our class, full of already highly skilled artists, was above such rudimentary exercises. I was very wrong!
By going back to the basics we learned about light and color much more in-depth level than I though possible. My painting instructor JP Roy did a demo using several tubes of black paint to show us the range of color that’s possible when only using black paint – Ivory Black, Blue Black, Mars Black, Black Spinnel, Chromatic Black. Coincidentally, it had been a rainy week in New York, so with the foggy and hazy atmosphere is exaggerating the wide range of blacks and greys in New York!
Since we’ve been painting using a limited palette, I’ve begun to notice the many artists whose work lies whithin this limited color range. Here are a few I’ve looked to for inspiration:
