Sunday, September 18, 2011

Bold color palette!

After making the two small abstracts last week, I decided to make an 8" x 10". In contemplating the blank panel, I got to thinking about all of the nice art papers I had NOT been using since they didn't mesh with my current mode of making landscapes. I pulled out a stack of papers and fanned out colors that would work together to make a "field of color" when cut into strips. I went back to the pieces that were leftover from the train graffiti piece I made this summer (see the July 20th posting) to pull some of the red boxcar pieces into the composition. I realized all boxcars have text on them saying CLOSE AND LOCK DOORS BEFORE MOVING CAR and I had two red strips with the first part of the phrase and two green strips that held a variation of the phrase (it instructs to lock BOTH DOORS). I included those in the color fields along with strips of the ridged car sides and some green and blue graffiti (you can see those details if you click on the image to enlarge it). Some of the papers have metallic gold in them, so between that, the abstracted train imagery, the bits of text and the bold color, this piece is really jumping! I'm calling it "Moving Car" -- a direct reference to the train text, but also conjuring up images from a moving train or auto.