Color.

Rose Quartz & Serenity

Madam Butterfly

Acrylic on Gallery Wrap Canvas

40x40

6000.

Have you already heard about this? Pantone selected two colors of the year for 2016...yes, Rose Quartz and Serenity. So who is Pantone?  Color Authority.  Owned by Washington, D.C.-based Danaher Corp., Pantone creates a system that helps manufacturers define color precisely. Every year the company polls decor and fashion designers, manufacturers and retailers about colors they plan to use and based on the information gathered, pick the color for the coming year.  This is the first year Pantone has selected two. Rose Quartz and Serenity.

Take a closer look....one might say baby pink and baby blue, however Pantone says more of a Rose Pink to convey a rosy warmth balanced with the blue to invoke tranquility. No baby stuff here.

Be watching for these colors....everywhere.  You will see it in home products, clothing, personal products.  Here are just a few.

Interestingly enough, when Pantone announced their decision to name these two colors for 2016 I could not stop connecting my most recent painting, Madame Butterfly, to the decision.  

Madame Butterly

Truly, I did not know of Pantone's color selection until just a few days ago.  No one did.  I firmly believe (and have written about this before) if the mind is open it can tap into thoughts that circulate through the universe. It's not a conscience thing; it happens with spontaneity and is absolutely unplanned. This goes along with my last blog post about using your creativity, allowing yourself to be open and flexible.  Do things a little differently.  

Madame Butterfly

When I approached this particular painting I let it grow and change in a spontaneous manner.  I had not planned on using this palette.  It just happened as the painting progressed based on what I thought looked best.  A lot of intuition.  I never use pink..oops...Rose Quartz.  I typically do not use pastel colors.  My palette is usually bold, fully saturated color. Being open allowed the universe to dictate a very different palette and one I now see is coming into use everywhere.  Rose Quartz and Serenity.  

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Mamie Gregory III.

Details

Get two artists together for conversation and you just don't know what might come up.  The other day over lunch I was asked, by a fellow artist, if I was using stencils on my current painting of Mamie Gregory.  She was looking at the lizards climbing up the canvas, the butterflies flitting around. Answer:  Yes.

Detail of lizards and butterflies.

I realized this might not occur to everyone, so I thought you might like to see the stencils I created.  Each was hand drawn, cut out of heavy paper, placed against the canvas, traced around with pencil.  After the outline was in place I painted around the image and then later filled in the image.

Paper cut outs used as stencils.

After painting around the outside of the stenciled image.

After the stenciled images of butterflies and lizards were painted in.

What the painting looks like today.

There is more work to be done to bring this painting to completion, but Mamie Gregory aka Madame Butterfly is almost ready to join the gallery of Indian Women Portraits on my web site.

To contact me click HERE

To visit my web site click HERE

Mamie Gregory.

Madame Butterfly

I encourage you to scroll down through the images below to see the development and progress on the painting of Mamie Gregory aka Madame Butterfly.  An image is worth a thousand words....

Under painting the face.

Mamie begins to look out from the canvas.

The dress she is wearing in her photograph becomes inspiration for design elements in the painting.

Mamie's lizard basket motifs inspire more design elements.

Stylized image of a basket is added to the canvas.

Butterflies flitter onto the canvas.

How the painting looks this morning as I approach the easel.