Playing with Couleur

These are some quick colour tests I have done. I am trying to find the best colour combinations, playing with complementary colours, opposite colours, find some third spot colour to complement the first two, etc. Playing with shape and mark making, their is some Rothko and some Kandinsky, as they are some of the greatest masters of colour. Burke suggested that too much details blocks the mind from actually understanding the deeper psyche of the artist, to understand his motives and the emotions that went into the piece. I am therefore avoiding excessive definition of detail and keeping it as vague and open as possible.

I will do much more of these, for, even though as a concept art they are not relevent to my book, colour composition is in my eyes essentiel and the foremost element in a painting. It creates the painting, it makes come alive and it relates to the inner consciousness of everyone else. There are a lot of factors involved in the success of a painting, anatomy, perspective, space, and more, but none can achieve its purpose without colour. The sum of all things but colour will result in a sum that is equal to its components. Adding colour will turn an equal sum to something greater than the sum of its components.  I do not feel I have a strong enough understanding of colour to be confident enough in my more realistic paintings.

Some Rothko for Colour

This one lacks something. I think that using the same red as in the background inside the blue shapes was a bad choice as it makes the whole piece too red.

Kandinsky is the obvious influence here. I wanted to try shape and colour and finding something pleasing to the eye. The red, blue, brown combination works quit well, while the light orange, more a milky orange in fact, fails to do anything positive. Same with the turquoise which I do not like. I think it works better in a monochromatic, or bichromatic association, where white is more important. Using a faded red as a contrast should work out, will have to try that out.

Working with opposite colour, with green touching blue, I attempted to find a corelation between the two, and felt some success with the darker green, but the lighter green, mixed with the yellow, creates a really negative response with the blue and ruins the whole composition. 

Purple, Green and Yellow. Not too sure about that one.