Color and Space

We entered into oil painting and color perspective.  It was about becoming more sensitive. 

            We started by observing marionettes and models and rendering what we saw on paper.  To do this we first used charcoal, then various shades of watercolor paint.  We simplified the broad and differentiated field of vision into simple areas which we created with 3 shades of paint, say sepia or indigo, and then the white of our paper.  Then we looked at our flat paper and saw figures in space, we saw light and dark relationships which had come out of spatial observation.  This is something quite interesting, experiencing space on a two dimensional surface.  Then we took these sketches and transformed dark areas into depth by using colors which distance themselves from us.  We rendered the light areas with colors which approach us.  The three dimensional space which had been our point of departure disappeared.  In its wake a new space opened.  The figures came apart.  The more flat we painted the more this new space opened out and in.   Instead of a static and empty physical space, a color space appeared, a depth with an abundance of content, a space filled with life and moods.

             This was our goal, bringing to awareness the threshold between the realm of painting, the flat life of color and form, and sculptural experience.  Now we can ask with some seriousness if colors are two dimensional.  We have seen that they are, and the more flat are, the more they are not.