Colors ~ Sunrise Sky ‘Intuitive Palette’ ~ Painting Workshop ~ Provincetown Art Association and Museum

“My aim in painting is to create pulsating, luminous, and open surfaces that emanate a mystic light, in accordance with my deepest insight into the experience of life and nature.” 

Hans Hofmann

“Colors must fit together as pieces in a puzzle or cogs in a wheel.” Hans Hofmann

“Color is a plastic means of creating intervals . . . color harmonics produced by special relationships, or tensions. We differentiate now between formal tensions and color tensions, just as we differentiate in music between counterpoint and harmony.”    Hans Hofmann

“Being inexhaustible, life and nature are a constant stimulus for a creative mind.” Hans Hofmann

It is not the form that dictates the color, but the color that brings out the form.” Hans Hofmann

“An idea can only be materialized with the help of a medium of expression, the inherent qualities of which must be surely sensed and understood in order to become the carrier of an idea.” Hans Hofmann

“When the impulses which stir us to profound emotion are integrated with the medium of expression, every interview of the soul may become art. This is contingent upon mastery of the medium.” 

Hans Hofmann

“In nature, light creates the color. In the picture, color creates the light.” Hans Hofmann

In March I had the great privilege of attending a painting workshop at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum taught by a former student of Hans Hofmann.
Robert Henry is a fabulous artist/painter/teacher whose relaxed and generous teaching style made the three day color workshop so rewarding.
I begin each day by stepping out of our cottage and standing on the dunes of North Truro bathed by the light and colors of the sunrise and ocean. Later, after lunch, I enter the museum painting studio and apply paint to canvas, while Bob shares his vast knowledge and interpretations of color. Three hours or so later I am feeling, thinking, seeing, sensing and cleaning color off my brushes . . . then back in nature with J. walking, exploring, dining and once again bathing in the vibrant colors of the sun as it vanishes beyond the ocean.
It had not occurred to me, until I began assembling this piece together, that the colors of the sunrise were intuitively chosen by me for the palette of my small paintings.
I have such a long journey to “master the medium”. . .  though it is often a struggle, the process is ever enriching. 

I published a post on the amazing Right whales off of Race Point Lighthouse over at Focusing On Wildlife. It was truly a spectacular event!

Meanwhile out in the gardens and sky here at Flower Hill Farm . . .

In keeping with our color theme . . . here is a glimpse of BLUE ~ a peek at a future posting.
The male and female bluebirds are busy guarding and building their nest.
The middle photo is the female and the far right is of the male. The female bluebird’s head is not quite the intensity of blue found in the male bluebird. The greens and grays in the background enhance the colors intensity.
What would you call this blue? Cobalt, Ultramarine or Cerulean?
It does not come out of a tube for sure.
If you click on this photograph you can see the colors more vividly.

Hanging in a blue sky April’s full moon is known as the Full Pink Moon (grass pink or ground phlox) or ‘sprouting grass moon’ . . . Native Americans along the coast call it Full Fish Moon, in honor of shad returning to streams to spawn. The first full moon of spring is also known as the Paschal Full Moon.
Passover or Easter . . . whichever you celebrate (or perhaps another ritual) . . . I hope it was a good time with family and friends.
May light fall through your prisms . . . may color inspire and warm your heart . . . may there be double rainbows after soaking storms.
I gladly dance beneath the moon for rain.
Peace.