Immediately from my research, I am drawn to: the ORANGE.
...powdery orange dirt, red-orange brick, earthy orange tones mixed with vibrant splats of plum - never before have I been so excited about orange!
So I started painting and pasteling up some paper from my imagery, trying to mix the oranges.
and thinking back to how in Tanzania, I was fascinated by all the paper beads made and sold by the local people; I chopped up some of my painted paper into strips to make my own 'beads', as a way of exploring the range of orange colour...
Here's my box of research photos I took in Tanzania- lots of orange to explore here!
here's some of the paper bead necklaces I brought while in Tanzania. The local people make them using strips of magazines/newspapers/leaflets, cut into strips, carefully rolled, then varnished with PVA...I think this coating makes the colours so rich and beautiful (note to self- maybe explore varnishing/adding shine to surfaces as a development to this initial exploration sometime soon...!)
an example strip. I found that cutting the paper at different angles results in different shaped beads, altering the proportions of colour within the strip that are visible in the final bead- could be something to play around further with...
on a roll here making my beads- literally
some close ups of one type of my painted paper sheets. Here I am exploring the mottled, dusty, powdery texture of the orange earth. I began with a base of orange oil, then mixed up various shades of gouache to brush over the top, creating a resist against the original vibrant oil. These photos were taken when the paint was still wet, so it has a shine. It could be interesting to take other colours and see how they work against this orange now...
