Last month I did a live IGTV interview with @artfullysorted discussing my painting practice. It was the first time I had done an instagram interview and what I really liked is that you could see other users joining and asking questions. One asked ‘Why is blue so dominant in your work?’ – easy, it’s a colour that makes me feel comfortable, I find it endlessly charismatic and alluring and I think my interest in this colour has something to do with growing up in the west of Ireland where the sky tones can blend from cerulean to prussian in one day- very dramatic!
After the interview it got me thinking about the colours that I’m not comfortable painting with and green is a big player in this category. So as things are still unsettled with the art world waiting to see when it can come to life again due to Covid, I decided to take this time to experiment and challenge myself to use green as I’ve generally cowered from painting with it: it tends to end up muddy as if it should be in a pigsty!
Above is a result of this green investigation, yes I know, its a tentative introduction of green to my work and certainly I opted for the calmer shades of green but once I got into the process (reluctantly!) I actually began to enjoy experimenting my usual blues against the greens, particularly French ultramarine.
I recall a rhyme from when I was growing up “Blue and green are never to be seen unless there’s colours in between”- on the contrary I think….!
Image: painting study taken on my phone