Views On Hues Color For Your Home Live In Full Color Color Pro Kate Smith Sensational Color

Sensational Color Pro Kate Smith



Kate Smith on Color

What I'm reading, thinking about, and working on as well as where I'm appearing, what colorful events I'm attending and my personal thanks to all who are talking about what we're up to at Sensational Color.

Browse by Topic

open all | close all

Archives

open all | close all

Van Gogh and the Colors of the Night

24th Oct. '08 • Color in Art • Tags:

Filed as Colorful events

Van Gogh certainly has an emotional impact to his color choices. Who else could evoke night time using a yellow sky?

Through January 5th, you can view many of Van Gogh’s beautifully evocative paintings. ‘Colors of the Night’ is showing at the Museum of Modern Art on West 54th Street in Manhattan. (more…)   SensationalColor.com

Rachael Grad Art Reception

23rd Oct. '08 • Color in Art • Tags:

Filed as Colorful events

When I presented at the Apartment Therapy meet up earlier this month I met Rachael Grad one of their DC writers.  I immediately liked Rachael but when I learned that she had recently given up law to pursue her passion for art I knew I had found a kindred spirit.

As many of you know quite a few years ago I gave up my lucrative corporate position in order to regain a bit sanity in my hectic life as a single mom and to focus completely on color.  At the time most of my friends and family thought I had lost my mind but it has turned out to be one of the best decision I ever made.  I bet some people thought the same thing when they found out what Rachael was up to but all it takes is (more…)   SensationalColor.com

Views on Hues: Outerspace Meets Inner Space

16th Jun. '08 • Color in Art • Tags: ,

Filed as Color videos

Using land, sky or the cosmos as a point of departure, Anne Marchand invents forms in her paintings that convey feelings of energy and movement.

In the latest Views on Hues video I explore with Anne how she uses color in her paintings and public  art.

What the video on Sensational Color…   SensationalColor.com

Splotch

9th Apr. '08 • Color in Art • Tags: , ,

Filed as Color videos

Check out this colorful video clip created by swimmer, artist, musician and aspiring pro animation creator, Sidney.

At nine years old he is already quite prolific at his craft.

I love his use of color and the wonderful name he chose for his video– ‘Splotch’.

Watch more cool animation and creative cartoons at aniBoom a platform for animators and animation fans all the around the world to watch, share and create animation!

[SWF]http://api.aniboom.com/shapeshifterEmbed.swf?videoar=170669,425,355[/SWF]

This is an awesome site.It is simple, fun and easy enough to use that anyone who feels like giving animation a try can make a simple animated clip without any installation or download of software.

aniboom.jpg

Also check out the entries for their ‘In Rainbows’ music video contest…   SensationalColor.com

Fill That Frame With Color!

8th Apr. '08 • Color in Art • Tags:

Filed as Colorful events

colorphoto.jpg

Add your best photo that just happens to be mostly one vivid color or stop by to see the photos that have already been posted at jpgmag.com   SensationalColor.com

As Seen On: Painterly Vision

16th Feb. '08 • Color in Art • Tags:

Filed as In the media

Anne Marchand included Sensational Color in her blog Painterly Visions today.  Thanks Anne!   SensationalColor.com

Thunderstorm Greys

7th Jan. '08 • Color in Art • Tags: , ,

Filed as Kate Smith

This weekend I’m participating with artist Brenda Belfield in a Winter Paint Escape where we will create a series of small abstract paintings inspired by Northern light, bare trees, and greyed hues of the season.

To some people grey may sound bland or boring but I fell in love with grey when I began working in pastels. It all started when in the art supply store I happened upon two boxes of Unison pastels: Grey 1-18 and Grey 19-36.

Not yet knowing too much about pastels I peaked inside the boxes more out of curiousity than thinking as a beginner I needed 36 different greys but once the boxes were opened it was love at first sight.

These boxes contained luscious bits of color that were complex and intriguing. Beautiful shades of blue, green, gold and lavender; nothing like the greys I was expecting. I was hooked!

Grey took on an entirely new meaning for me and I’ve been exploring all the nuances of grey through painting ever since (although not nearly as often as I would like.)

I was recently elated to find another “have to have it” set of grey pastels. This set was created by Karl Kelly of Mount Visions Pastels. Even if I wasn’t already hooked on greys I think the color story behind the “Thunderstorm Greys” would have enticed me enough to give them a try.

Karl’s Color Story

After spending a couple of summers in Florida and seeing all of these wonderful greys in our afternoon thunderstorms I had my inspiration.

The greys I was seeing weren’t the standard greys I was used to. The reddish greys became more pure as they got lighter. The rich blue greys got browner and dirtier as they faded. This set is the results of more than three years of looking and experimenting to find the right mixtures of greys to match what I was seeing.

I became enamored with the color of these storms, the greys were incredible. There were blue-greys that just faded out. There were purpley blue greys that warmed and became brownish around the edges. There were deep ominous reds that lightened to dirty pinks. The subtlety was amazing and I had to try to figure out how to get these colors.

I already made a couple of the colors that I was seeing, a group of blue greys and a deep, almost black red violet that made some warm purpley greys. I spent quite a bit of time mixing sample colors in every way I could think of. Some were close to what I had in mind, most of them were not.

640-643: The first group that I had success with was getting a strong intense blue that held its own as it darkened. As it lightened I finally figured out how to get that dirty brownish feel of the storms.

670-674: The next color that I worked on was a purple that almost went to a yellow as it lightened. There were many attempts at this range of color. Sometimes the color would be to bright and intense, to fake. While there can be an almost unnatural quality to the intensity of the thunderstorm colors it still has an earthiness to it that was hard for me to match. Finally I arrived at this range that holds its essence well and can be tweeked with layerings of more intense colors below it or scumbled on top.

680-684: The other group that I made specifically in this thunderstorm range was this group of dark reds that became purer and less earthy as they lightened.

230-233: A group that starts with a very dark, almost black, red violet and makes a set of reddish greys as it lightens.

540-544: A set of dark blue greys. Great as a base sky color for those sun challenged days.

422-423: These are a mixed green grey. Quite wonderful for the yellow of the sun hitting off the clouds and being influenced by the surrounding blue to make a soft shimmering green/grey.

Not only are these greys wonderful but the constancy is just perfect. No wonder my teacher, mentor and friend Nancy Freeman has been gushing about this brand of pastels for months.

Resources:

  SensationalColor.com
Page 1 of 11

Subscribe via Email

Email:
Name:
We will never share your private information with anyone (privacy policy) and you can easily unsubscribe with just one click...so why not?

Grab the RSS Feed

Connect with Kate

Follow Kate on Twitter