My Palette

I have been meaning to talk about my palette for awhile and since things have been so slow around here lately, now seems like a good time.

When I first moved into my new studio, I had all my paint tubes set out on the top of my flat file cabinet, which is right behind me when I am at the easel. Doug suggested that I put them all in one of the flat file drawers but I pooh poohed him and informed him that having to open the drawer would be WAY TOO INCONVENIENT.

Around Christmas time I had a get together in my studio and wanted to have the top of the flat file clear so that I could put out some of the small paintings I had been working on. So I loaded up the top drawer with all my paints (they fit perfectly). When it was time to get back to work after the holidays, I just left them where they were. Turns out that it is pretty easy to just open the drawer when I need them! Of course it helps that I just leave the drawer open while I am working. This also give me the top surface of the cabinet to clutter up with stuff. heh.


Obviously I like to have a lot of paint on hand! I like to have a good variety of colors available although to be honest, I mostly just use about a dozen or so of them regularly. Each day though, I try to put out one or two colors that I don't normally use. The colors that I currently am obsessed with (these colors change periodically, I am very fickle) are Indigo Blue, Green Ural, Medium Cadmium Yellow, Azo Green, Gamblin Light Blue, Caeser Purple, Vasari Ship Rock, Gamblin Light Magenta, Gamblin Cadmium Red Deep, Cobalt Green Pale, Cinnabar Green Light, Old Holland Violet Grey. I don't stick to a certain brand of paint because while I do like some brands more than others (I am loving Vasari paints lately!), the colors are what's important to me and every color varies from from manufacturer to manufacturer. For example I use a yellow from Grumbacher in almost every painting. Not the best quality paint ever, but the color trumps that for me.

Anyway. In college, I got in the habit of using a disposable palette pad and still use that now. When my studio was downstairs it was necessary to put everything away at night (mostly because of the cats who spend their nights walking on every single surface of the house) so the disposable palette was convenient for that. Now that I have a studio with a door, I have been tending to leave my paints out for a few days. I may end up getting a more permanent surface to mix my paints on, but for the time being I am still using my old set up. The pad sits in a butcher's tray which helps to contain the flying paint and Liquin and I use a tin foil muffin cup to hold the day's Liquin. This is my whole set up; the palette, and another tray with a jar of Turpenoid Natural to rinse my brushes and a rag to wipe the brushes off. And other junk too, heh:

I put out the paint I think I will use each day, although I often add more colors, as I go, depending on what I feel like doing. I use very little paint and I don't do a lot of mixing of colors, maybe two colors, more if I want a mucky color. Mostly I thin out the paint with Liquin until I get the consistency that I want, and then mix another color in.

Unless I am painting more than one large painting in a painting session, I rarely have to move to a second sheet of palette paper. If there is paint left after I am done for the day, I leave it to use the next day. Or I will scrape it off with a palette knife and put it onto a new piece of palette paper if I need more space for mixing. This is my palette after doing about 10 very small paintings, 6x6 and 5x7's.

Traditionalists would probably flip seeing what I do with my palette. I use crazy colors, and different ones all the time, I just put them out in no particular order, and also different order each day. I have never felt the need to conform to the traditional palette and much prefer changing some things up, especially since some of the other parts of my process are fairly rigid. Makes a nice balance, I think.

So I would love to hear how you handle your palette. Traditional, crazy or somewhere in between?

Hair

This underpainting has been sitting in my studio for at least a month. I haven't felt inclined to work on it, but perhaps I will soon. I am putting it up today, because it's well, red.

Well, as if my last post about girl scout cookies (thanks to those who are buying some and I am still taking orders, by the way) wasn't far enough off the topic of art, today I am going a bit further. I will warn you right now that this topic will be about my hair, so if that is too trivial for any of you, just go on ahead and close the page. I will not be offended, I promise.

Like most girls, I have always wanted the kind of hair that I did not have. It's been awhile since I have actually seen it, but I think my natural hair is medium brown, the mousy kind of brown (now there is a bit of grey mixed in) and it is straight as stick. I spent most of the 80's getting perms in order to have the curly hair that I thought was my birthright. Around 1987 or so, when I was in college, I started to get my hair colored red, which seemed to be exactly right for me. I couldn't pay my rent half the time or cover the phone bill, but by god, I always managed to scrape up enough money to get my hair done! Sometimes it seemed as that's all I had going for me-nice hair.

Over the years, we have moved a lot and I have had many different people do the color. I stopped getting perms long ago, but the hair color has always been a constant. I had a specific formula that I gave to each new hairdresser and while there have been a few modifications, it was always red, red, red.

Here's an art connection: More than a few people have noticed that the overall red/orange color in my work, which is actually the underpainting, is strikingly similar to my hair color. This is a coincidence, or at the very least a very unconscious decision on my part. I feel a bit embarrassed when it is mentioned, worrying that people might think I am so in love with my own hair color that I would use it as a basis for my work. Um, except, well I kind of am, in love with my hair color, that is.

Since we moved up here though, I have had trouble with it. The hair color would look great for a week or two, but then would start to fade to an orangey color, which while not horrible, wasn't exactly what I had in mind either. I suspect our icky well water is the culprit, high in iron and sulfur, and since getting a filtration system installed is pretty low on our home improvement list, I began to think that I should try to switch to a different color, one that wouldn't be so affected by our water and one that would last longer. The reds are notoriously short-lived anyway. So all is very quiet here and because I don't have much going on for a few months, (good grief, I am so vain!) I thought I'd try a different color.

On Saturday I went in and discussed colors with my hairdresser/collector (she has purchased several of my paintings)and we agreed on a nice brown with red highlights. The color is beautiful, but it is so dark! There is no chance of anyone ever saying I am a redhead now and I can't believe that that bothers me. It has been a huge part of my identity for so long and even I am surprised at how attached I am to being a redhead. I have gone through so many changes over the years and silly as it may be, my hair has been a constant element for me. That never occurred to me until now.

But change can be good and I am going to spend some time trying to adjust to being a brunette. Not much can be done for the time being anyway, because of how dark the color is and I don't want to totally wreck my hair trying to lighten it. I do think I will keep trying to find the right shade of reddish brown though, though it will take some time I guess.

I may have to buy new clothes though. My whole wardrobe is geared towards red hair further proving that everything is all about the hair here in Tracyland. Heh. And I'd put a picture up, but I am totally not ready for that yet. I seldom even put a picture of me up with my comfy old red hair. Baby steps, ok? First I need to leave the house and let my real life friends see me.