You know that thing dogs do when they’re on the lead and they don’t want to go where you’re going? How they kind of dig their paws in and crunch their heads back, and basically turn to stone?

That’s how I feel at the end of Week 4 of DAPWYL, and heading into Week 5. Because next week is the final week and I am SO not ready for this class to be over!

low intensity painting

This is most of the work I produced this past week, which as you may guess was all about colour. I was quite shocked and kind of embarrassed that as someone who makes art with paint most days, I was NOT using my colours to anything LIKE their full capacity.

high intensity painting: unfinished

I had got into a habit of using colours straight from the bottle, sometimes blending them on the canvas, but certainly not exploring the possibilities for new colours created by mixing them together. It’s really quite shameful.

colour studies : : spring summer collage : : summer was painted over spring

Enter Melinda Cootsona, Pauline’s co-teacher this week, a master of colour and creator of beautiful figurative paintings. Melinda has been teaching us about colour theory, and it’s fair to say that my mind was pretty blown by what I’ve learned, and we’ve really only scratched the surface.

colour studies : : autumn winter paintings : : winter was painted over autumn

We looked at high and low intensity, mixing colours for different effects, and I even went into the studio and made the following colour studies unprompted! Something must’ve shifted in my little artist brain. 🙂

colour studies : : ways to lighten colours without using white

Colour theory could potentially be very boring, and at first I could feel myself shutting down just at those words, but it turns out you only need to know a few basics to revolutionise the way you use and look at colour, and consequently how you look at paintings in general. I’ve been going round the house looking at all my work in a new light.

colour study : : I’ve multiplied the amount of colours I thought I had by about five {million}

I know many of you are starting to feel like this course is calling to you; if that’s the case you will be pleased to learn that Pauline will be running it again later in the year, as well as a new class {which I will be doing, surprisingly}, and if you befriend her on Facebook you will be alerted to the date of her next Online Open Studio. I joined the last one and it’s what convinced me to sign up for the class; it’s a fun and as far as I know completely unprecedented set up, and way to get to know Pauline, her work, and the kind of things you’ll be doing in the class. And last time there were some fantastic giveaways, so I imagine there’ll be that too.