Pyrrole Joy

 Continuing with the Magic City theme here is a city of the south.  

I am in love with Pyrrole orange. I find it such a joyful colour. Pyrrole pigments were only discovered in the early 1980s. Pyrrole orange is a bright mid orange that is transparent and gives lots of variety when mixed with other pigments.

Fun fact: Orange was not used as a name to describe a colour until the Middle Ages when the fruit was imported into Europe. The range of colours we call orange were previously described as yellow or red.

My magic city in this painting might be called "The Red City" or even "The Pink City" if orange was not a named colour.  I like that.

Whatever it is called it feels (to me) quite joyous. And yes it is also quirky and idiosyncratic. It was a lot of fun to paint.

Earth and Fire - the heart of the volcano.

The physical process of making art helps me understand my embodiment through playing with the elements directly using the senses of touch and sight.  

Paint is made of pigment, earth element in its many colours, ground into coloured dust and mixed with liquid. Some favourite colours are made of earth and fire by firing raw clay: burnt umber and burnt siena. The latter gives lovely warm transparent glazes and makes a rich glowing surface.. 

I used a ground of burnt siena as the basis of this work and then worked into it with richly pigmented watercolours. 

Molten Earth.