This post is about the wonderful artist, Beverly Ash Gilbert, and my explorations of color based on exercises she has written about in her blog. Let me tell you... this woman is a brilliant artist and knows how to use color! Check her out at her blog, beverlygilbert.blogspot.com.
or her web page: gilbert designs.net.
Here is one example of her work... (It's very hard to not show more so you'll just have to go see yourself!


I'm partial to carnelian and amethyst myself so this one just blew me away. (well honestly, they all do.) I can't remember how I even stumbled upon her blog, but I found it a couple of days ago and I've been on a color ride ever since. Woo-hoo!!
If you read her last couple of blog entries, you'll see that she is introducing some color exercises. Beverly has posted 2 steps in a series that she uses in her teaching. The second step has resulted in that image I've shown to the upper left. I began with red and blue magazine bits and then formed the rest around them. I'm astonished at what came of it! The first step was a matter of using just one color in a 10 minute quick exercise. Here's a photo of that one:
I know, my greens look brown, but at the moment I decided they were green-brown and she encouraged us not to think about it too much! lol... The first exercise is about understanding different value differences in color, as well as using the right side of the brain and not "over thinking" (my words) it. I was happy to find that I had no problem about whether my greens were really "green" at the time (as we can see!). I even had no problem when it came to making a big "blob" and not trying to make it pretty. I was actually amazed that it wasn't difficult for me because I'm pretty heavy on the perfectionist side of things (a blessing and a curse I'd say). The part that was challenging to me was that I ran out of time before I got all of my pieces glued on! And being the honest type that I am, I'll admit it... I was bad. I took an extra 30 seconds to glue those babies on! Bad Shay... (I'll try to do a real 10 minutes again soon -- promise!)

So, step one was the one-color, 10 minute blob. Step two is about color transitions. We are told to start with two color blobs on opposite corners of our gluing surface (a piece of cardstock for me) and rip out colors that will transition from one color to the other (adding in an additional color between the two if that worked best) . In my piece, I started with blue and red. I intentionally did not look much at her example because I wanted to be sure to do my own without outside influence. Before I started I was sure to see if there was a time limit on this one. No limit. Now, when I look at my final piece and think about how long it took me to do it (2 hours?) I laugh out loud at myself. I look at Beverly's versus mine and she made the transition in quite a few steps less (pieces) than me. Of course, this was my perfectionist self trying to find the exact right blend. I wouldn't have even thought it possible to do it in fewer steps as she had done. Her is hers on the left and mine on the right: I did the whole rainbow without realizing it!


LOL.. still laughing at myself. I know there is no "right" way to do it, but of course I would make it more time consuming than need be! It was a great project and I can't wait to see what the next step is!
In a post soon to follow , I'm going to show a photo montage that I've created based on the first step.
Fun!