Caffeine 'n' Diesel
2022: Fish Out of Water
(August 2026: Life did what life does and foiled even my best laid plans...meaning that this project is still in progress four years later. It's almost completed now and if all goes well will be revealed here in it's entirety in late 2026!)
In 2022, Studio 52 embarked upon a group project called Luck of the Draw.
The rules were as follows:
1. Each artist received 52 randomly selected paint chips, those little paper ones you find in the paint stores.
2. All 52 chips needed to be used in some fashion.
3. Art to be based on either the colour name or the colour itself, or both.
4. Artists could complete however many pieces of art they wished, in any size and medium they chose.
I named my artistic adventure Fish Out of Water because watercolour was to be the medium and that definitely made me feel like the proverbial fish out of water because I hadn't worked with it much. My goal was to paint the first thing that came into my mind when I'd read the colour names. Talk about an adventure indeed!
"Mirabelle"
8x10 watercolor/mixed media on Arches Art Board
My project was based more on the paint chip names than the colours, but in this case both colour and name were the inspiration for this piece. Paint colours were: Warm & Toasty, Knitted Cape, and Wool Peacoat. All I could think of was a sheep's thick warm wool!
The base of the painting was watercolour, followed by acrylic, then more watercolour, and finished off with final touchups of acrylic. This piece was quite challenging because I hadn't painted in a very long time and the creative juices were running a bit slow still. Also I was recovering from a badly broken wrist so I couldn't paint for long periods of time.
"Square Tower House, Mesa Verde"
7x10 Watercolour
Paint chip: City Shadows
We visited Mesa Verde years ago and this was the first cliff dwelling I'd ever seen. I've always been totally fascinated by them and literally couldn't breathe when I first peeked over the railing and saw it way down the cliff face. I've wanted to paint it ever since then and it finally happened!
This painting was inspired by the colour called City Shadow. Every time I thought of city shadows, I remembered Square Tower House. If not for it's shadows, it and Mesa Verde's other cliff dwellings would have been extremely difficult to see because they were carved out of the cliffs themselves and therefore disappeared into them.
