Red, It’s Said…

Is the color of romance, danger, and power.  It catches your eye, whether it’s a beautiful woman’s favorite shade of lipstick, or the stop sign you almost missed.  It’s the color of apples, Valentine’s Day, blood, or a remarkable sunset. A red light can mean a sexy district in Amsterdam or a warning at a busy intersection.

Red is used as a focal point in art work.  Artists have been known to scatter points of red through their work to act as eye magnets, guiding your eye to take in the entire composition.  It is a highly visible color, second only to yellow.

I rarely use red in my work.  I favor the cool blue, purples and greens. But every once in a while I venture to the Alizarin Crimson, Cadmium Red, and Vermillion part of my paint box and add a little punch there and there.  Here’s a few paintings I especially like using my bright, brash member of the color palette:

       

                               


Google Culture focuses on the color red with 7 interesting factoids:

Red from Google Culture

Visit my website for an look of my red (and other colored) paintings.

Krys Pettit Artwork

Redo It's What We Do

Painting for me can be hit or miss.  The best thought out piece can look exceptional in my head and turn out to be as blah as cold oatmeal on a grey day when done.  And those cold pieces get tossed in a portfolio to never see the light in my studio again.

Recently I purged a number of old watercolor paintings that just were not worth keeping.  I do this periodically but this was a deep dark disposal of some fairly weak items.  I kept a handful to reuse to paint on the backs (yes we artists reuse and repurpose -- have been for centuries).  I looked over this marsh scene and decided it needed a bit of a makeover.

It's a nice little piece, nothing too fancy.  Capably done but, as a friend would say, "Meh."

Redoing a painting in watercolor is more complex than in oil.  It is difficult if not impossible to lift color off the paper after it has dried.  So in this case lifting to add more highlights was tough.  I opted to just saturate with more color and contrast and shadows.

"Sunset - Florida Marsh" 

Krys Pettit

Watercolor on 140# Paper

11"H x 15" W

I worked on tweaking it a bit for an hour or so, adding darker values, playing around with complementary colors, adding texture and depth.  A pretty, restful piece that captures the glorious colors of a Florida sunset.  A little less "meh" and a little more "nice."

Visit my website for more samples of the pieces that didn't make it to the recycle pile :) 

Krys Pettit Original Artwork

Where's the Fun in That?

I study with a very proficient oil painter once a week.  For me this is weekly journey of challenges and anxiety, reversing my thinking process of creating a piece of art in another medium.  After 20-plus years as a watercolor artist I decided it was time to step up and learn a new medium.

So when an associate happily told me to "Have Fun!" as I set off to my lesson I had to wonder if this was really a way to have fun.  Art, as much as it is a joyous activity, also can be hellacious on the creator.  When you begin making art you are just gosh-darned thrilled to put lines, shapes, color on paper or canvas. And it may be all you ever wanted to do.  But if you are really committed, dedicated to making art, those blobs of color will never satisfy you enough.

You want more. You want to get better. You discipline yourself to work daily.  You take lessons and read and learn from the masters.  You want to explore and perfect your way of telling a story. You challenge yourself.  You throw out more than you keep.  You wonder what the heck possesses you to keep doing this, to add to the stacks of paper and canvases, to the pile of curiously squeezed tubes of paint, to the seductive smell of linseed oil in your studio.  And often you ask yourself why you continue to do this.

Maybe this is my idea of fun.  With just a little insanity thrown in.

“If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn't seem so wonderful at all.” Michelangelo 

Discover more of my work at my website http://www.kryspettit.com/

Endless Possibilities

Endless Possibilities

Colors in a tube.  Little morsels of visual joy.  Waiting to be opened, exposed, mixed, spread, splattered.  Creamy and watery, thick and gooey, dark and light.  Random ingredients in a planned recipe for art.  Choose one or all.  It's a visual feast.

Krys Pettit Original Artwork