My Creative Neighbourhood – All the colours of the rainbow

This is where I look around at my fellow artists and highlight some of the wonderful things they’ve been up to recently. Anything that catches my eye, rattles my brain, or drops my jaw ends up here. Things I feel I need company in oggling at and admiring. If it’s here, it’s good.

I adore colour. I’m synaesthesiac, I think in colour, so really, this adoration is no surprise. I love colour in all its fantastic combinations, but for this week in celebration of a new challenge I will be introducing on Wednesday, I’m going to focus on all the colours of the rainbow and how some of the artists I know take on the full spectrum that makes up what our eyes see every day.

Please note: All the images in this post do not belong to me (except the ‘My Creative Neighbourhood’ icon above). Each image has been attributed to its author. Please visit their webpages to enjoy more of their wonderful work.

The first person who comes to mind when I think of the colour spectrum in art is Loretta Grayson. Early last year when I was in the depths of crochet madness, I came across her work and instantly fell in love. She has a fantastic way with colour. She seems to know exactly what hue to put where. I’m going to feature her African flower crochet cushion, one of my absolute favourites, here, but you should seriously seek out her paintings as well.

-o-o-o-

Another favourite artist of mine is Sheila Arthurs. Her doodles (read: artistic works) incorporate colour and line in an apparently random, yet purposeful way. I’m always enchanted by her ability to turn a simple doodle into a three dimensional illustration. Her colour work is always exciting , but ‘Once upon a time’ fits nicely into this post.

-o-o-o-

Mosaics are a great art to use to exhibit the spectrum and Susan Crocenzi knows how to manipulate it into something wonderful. I particularly like this triptych.

-o-o-o-

Isadore Michas has his own beautiful interpretation. Please visit his old blog to see ‘Full colour spectrum diptych’ as I couldn’t locate it on his current website. He also has a page that shows the basics of his painting process. He uses acrylic resin and modelling paste to create the most interesting contrasts between geometrics and textures. Well worth a look.

Patrick Gunderson has the most fascinating technique to create paintings such as ‘Color Conjuror’. Definitely have a look at his website. I only found him today, but his work uses colour in a way that ticks all my inspiration boxes and sets me drooling on the keyboard. Wonderful work.

-o-o-o-

And, of course, there is Sally Trace. I could gaze at Sally’s work for hours as my colour dependent brain soaks it all in, while my artist brain desperately tries to work out how she managed to create such beautiful paintwork. Here is a video of some of her artworks to drool over.

-o-o-o-

And now we are all drenched in colourful inspiration, stay tuned for a new challenge, Spectrum Square, due to launch on Wednesday, right here at Gumnut Inspirations.

Nutty
(colour is my world)

PS: Speaking of challenges, check out this nice little one over at ‘A Clear-Minded Creative‘ – Four for Feb. All that is required is to do something creative every week for the four weeks of February. I’m jumping in, hope to see you there.