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:
- See how pastels are made at Mount Vision here…
- More about Karl Kelly and the history of Mount Vision Pastels can be found here…
- Buy the Thunderstorm Greys here…
- Buy the Unison Greys here…
- Florida thunderstorm pictures courtesy of freestone’s cloud series on Flickr
