Swatches: August 25-September 1, 2022
The Mission:
Gather a supply of single color swatches (raid the paint aisle at Lowe’s, round up some fabric samples, or make your own swatches - as long as each is a small rectangle or square of one color, it’ll work). Make a piece of art using these swatches - a mosaic, a sculpture, whatever you like.
The Submissions:
“Loosely the (diamondish) sky, with Pearl-dog” - by Anonymous Frau Redux
Howdy from the heartland! Anonymous Frau Redux checking in and I must tell you the sky here is ah-may-zing.
One day it may look like the wallpaper from “Toy Story”. Other times the sky looks like chalk art smudged just so for effect. When a storm front comes along one might swear the dementors are about and ready to suck out someone’s soul. Of course a few times a year the heavens turn a strange green grey when there’s a watch- that might turn into a warning.
This piece “Loosely the (diamondish) sky, with Pearl-dog” was produced while listening to “Mr. Blue Sky” (ELO), “The Sky is a Neighborhood” (Foo Fighters) and “Spirit in the Sky” (Norman Greenbaum) and “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” (Beatles). Used 2 sets of color swatches pictures above. Pardon my scissor abilities please.
Additional reference sky photos (and Pearl walking away)
by Captain Quillard
So, the thing about growing up as a rule-following, semi-anxious child is that even though the paint samples are free at Lowe’s and displayed for the express purpose of you taking them home with you, when you stand in the paint aisle taking one of nearly every color swatch in the entire Sherwin-Williams collection, you find yourself sweating and nervous, absolutely certain that you’re about to get arrested or at least reprimanded for taking too many of the free samples.
That said, I did just that. And I brought them home and cut them into individual color rectangles. And I put them into a bag and shook them up and drew them out one at a time, at random, to make this piece of abstract, eggshell-finish art (above). It’s not the overly ambitious project I first planned to make (see below), but it turned out okay.
My original plan was much more impressive, but it turns out that’s because it also would’ve been impossible to complete in a week.
I was going to create American Gothic out of paint swatches. I even went as far as to reduce the painting to a version made up of colored squares (see here at right), and save that version on my phone so that I could refer to it at Lowe’s, selecting the correct color for each square and numbering it for assembly later at home.
I was pretty excited about this plan until I thought about the logistics. If my anxiety was high for the 20 minutes it took me to “steal” all the color swatches above, imagine how it would’ve been as I stood there in the paint aisle for the… I dunno… 8 hours?… it would’ve taken to color match and number all 620 squares in the painting.
This of course, is to say nothing of the fact that I’d then need to cut each rectangular sample into a square before I could even begin to lay out the artwork.
So, yeah. My dreams of being the Grant Wood of latex paint swatches was quickly dashed. Fun idea, though.
Next Week’s Assignment:
Inspired by architecture:
Choose a favorite architect, favorite building, or favorite architectural style in general. Let that architecture inspire you to create art of any kind you choose - a drawing, a painting, a poem, a craft, photography, whatever. Include a photo of the architecture that inspired you with your submission, so we can see how it is reflected in your art. Bonus points if you tell us what it is you love about that particular architecture.