Mosaic Monday/ The Color Red

"Poste" Italy 2012
© rebecca collins

"What I love most about Red is Green" ....

For my first post of 2013 I chose the "Poste" image above because it is red ... and yes it has a splash of green, is that electric or what? The other day I was thinking about doing color studies in Mosaic this year and a title for a piece came to mind before the actual piece even started to happen in my brain and that title is "What I love most about red is green".  So anyway yea, I have a title for a mosaic so now I need to get busy with it.

Setting up learning challenges for myself...
For the past couple of years I have tried to take on difficult things to challenge myself artistically. In 2011 I played with the color pink all year long because I hated it and thought it was weak. Well I kicked pink's ass and I used it in every way possible that was not overly sweet and girly. Now I love pink,  it is one of my favorite colors.  Last year in 2012 I focused a lot on ceramics. I had a story going that I was not very good at ceramics and so I wanted to try the medium again and see what I could do with it. I can not say that I kicked clay's ass, but I will say it is my friend and I am very comfortable there now.

So here we are in  2013 and I am going to study and embrace my strong suit .... color. I am great at color, anybody will tell you that. I never worry about my color choices and instead I work intuitively and play with color like a child with a new box of crayons. I told my best friend about my choice for 2013 and she asked why do you feel like you need to study color? I told her it had nothing at all to do with need and while I think she was hearing the word "study" as intense focused hard work, I can only see studying as playing.  I can not wait to get started!  I do not know why it never occurred to me before that studying and exploring something you are already good at can be a challenge in itself. How to start fresh with color as though you have beginner eyes?

How Will I Study Color?
I am going to choose a different color each month and focus on it both in my mosaic work and here at Art Paw. I am going to try hard to do one small color study mosaic per week. Those little works will be for sell in my Etsy shop. I am going to borrow from the web and other bloggers and start doing Tuesday-Huesday posts here on the blog. These posts will talk about one color for an entire month, so there will be 3 posts this month all about the color red!


More ways to study Color ...
I am going to be reading books about color and every time I go to an art show or museum I am going to really think even harder about the color choices that other people make and how those choices are unique to those artists.  Last night we watched the 1990's movie Dick Tracy and I thought I was going to absolutely drown in pure reds, greens and yellows. If you have not seen it in awhile it is worth a revisit ... yummy color-candy there.  So my study in  2013 looks like this ... I will be reading books, going to museums, watching movies and making art! Not a bad life.

So anyway ... please check back on the blog with me this year.... I will have lots to talk about.