I acknowledge that there is a lot about the color wheel and
mixing colors that I don't know. But one thing I do know is that there's more
to art than color schemes and memorizing a color mixing chart.
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Andrew by Fred Hatt,
drawing with aquarelle crayons, 35 x 25.
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For example, artist Fred Hatt works with colored line almost
as if it is the narrative in and of itself in his
figure drawings. He layers and
contrasts colors to electrify a scene or the figure he is rendering. Working
predominately in line, Hatt uses small strokes and vigorous gestural marks of
various colors in much the same way Seurat did with his pointillist dots--the
light reflected from the colors blends in the eye to make colors that are
usually brighter than their source colors. This vibrancy is enhanced by the
dark ground the artist uses, usually a black or dark gray paper.
For Hatt, color accuracy is something he can detect when he
looks at his subjects, but it is not his intent. Instead, he wants his works to
project energy--with line and with color. And he wants his colors to read more
emotionally than conceptually. That means he responds to his figures movements
or externalizes his own feelings through color.
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Alley by Fred Hatt,
drawing with aquarelle crayons. |
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Hatt's has an imaginative approach to color. He doesn't play
by the rules when it comes to the color chart, nor does it hold sway over the
decisions he makes in his
drawings, and that is the kind of attitude all artists
need to really find out what they are all about as artists.
I discovered Hatt's work while flipping through my issues of
Drawing. I was looking for
inspiration and found it--which I never fail to do when I reach for the
magazine. A subscription to Drawing
can do the same for you--inspire and instruct, and open avenues of expression
that are artistically essential if you want to keep
growing creatively. Considering that, Drawing
is the evergreen artist's resource. New subscribers will receive the Spring 2012 issue, which has two articles written by yours truly. Enjoy!
