Some interesting developments over the last couple of days, firstly I am now definitely going part time with my current job, I’m only dropping one working day but it is a start, after all canal locks produce big changes slowly.
Disjointedly moving on, a technical point now – which is probably pretty obvious is that I have discovered – via a mixture of curiously, research, and frustration that my technical pens will work absolutely perfectly with diluted inks. This opens up so many new possibilities in terms of colours. Since beginning experimenting with coloured inks and technical pens I have always used white to tint, change and lighten each colour, this is how can I say…limited and lends my work a certain look. Thumbing through books, magazines, surfing work from other artists – new and old I marvel at the colour and effects being achieved, all the while wondering how I can keep my work evolving. Now, with this modest inky development I would like to begin exploring colours in a much wider sense, saturation, luminosity and some pure colours. I have begun to find the use of tinting restrictive and it made me question the limits of technical pens. As you may know I am colour blind so the use of colour can be sketchy ground for me but now an area my work demands.
It’s a nice thought that when I started to use colour it was a revelation, it literally transformed my work and passion for what I do in an instant, at the time I thought I’d taken such a bold step (as I’d always resigned myself to a world of monochrome work) and in a sense it still is the case, I embraced my deficiencies in colour with the simple thought in mind that that it is part of me as much as my ideas or current aesthetic so be courageous and use it – after all it’s my identity and nobody else has it. Essentially this thought distils what an artist is, what an artist has and how an artist works. An expression of identity through a chosen vehicle (but not limited to).
I’m never going to be a gentle colourist or understand/ see colour in the same way that a normally sighted person does – however, this doesn’t mean I cannot make an interesting submission into the very human endeavour of art. It also (for any artists who are lacking in confidence due to colour blindness) doesn’t mean that your use of colour defaults to bad or inferior – just different.
Thank you as always for reading.
Updates coming at:
www.stuartbelton.com
