A love of orange

Part of the course I’m doing involves looking, really looking, at what you’re creating. What do you love, what sparks joy? Find the things you love and do more of that.

I’m onto the second part of the course where, instead of working on 12 small paintings, you work on 4 larger ones. I was sitting at my desk contemplating them and there it was … orange.

I added some more orange to the works, then made a stack of tissue with varying marks ranging from light to dark shades of orange.

Then my memory clicked in. When I did my Advanced Diploma of Art & Creativity almost 20 years ago we spent a term investigating colour as a material. I chose orange. I remember going to Gordon Harris Art Supplies and the French Art Shop and buying everything orange they had – ink, paint, crayon, pencil, pen, pastel.

I commented to my tutor, Peter A, that I wasn’t sleeping well. He asked me what orange stood for. Warmth, autumn, sunsets. Yes, but what else? Fire, danger, warning. Peter laughed and said the reason I wasn’t sleeping was because my brain was in constant alert mode.

Back to the present. I’m excited to have rediscovered my love of orange, and to see what it does for my landscapes.