Choosing the right color for my canvas paintings is the most difficult decision. Growing up, I would always choose the background color at the very last second. What mattered most, in my opinion, was the creation of the subject at hand instead of the whole. After hours of precise strokes and lines, I felt content in the main focus of the canvas. That content soon melted away as I realized the next few crucial choices to be made. Thus, when the time came, I chose a complementary background color that would either make or break the entire painting.
This past week, I engaged in relaxation time by coloring in a Dora the Explorer color book. There are usually two primary ways to execute these colorings. The artist can either defy the borders and lines, creating a messy masterpiece. On the other hand, the artist can strive for perfection and follow the rules of staying within the lines. Even though color book paintings probably do not signify much relation to actual artistic prowess, I felt obligated to stay within color book regulations to impress my friends.
The process began with a careful selection of the most prominent crayon colors. The varieties of blues, reds, and yellows astounded me. As a result, I painted Dora’s shoes red, blouse in blue, and under-shirt in red. All in all, I felt genuinely impressed by my efforts to complement the primary colors splayed across the page. In a lot of ways, Professor Conway’s words can be remarkably tied to even this method of artistic endeavor. Many artists often recognize and employ the methods they know will be successful. In “Doing Science Making Art,” Professor Conway notes that, “Techniques are employed because they have predictable results.” Although certainly true, these words instilled certain humility in me. In the past, I never noticed the pattern of safe artistic techniques I far too often employed. Whether it is through using only primary colors, or waiting until the very last moment to choose a background color for an artwork, I realized that the artistic process is not just a stroke of genius.
Furthermore, the surrounding societal expectations and educational standards probably play a crucial role in my safe artistic techniques. Perhaps this is why I have an extreme “misunderstanding of the mechanics of color.” This misunderstanding is best shown through my failures in coloring Dora’s skin tone as well as the background. The off-yellow, tan color I used for the skin made Dora look uneasy. Even more, the bluish-green background color that I chose completely off-balanced the entire picture. This experience best depicts Professor Conway’s literature on color, stating that, “But the application of a background does not have a neutral effect on the work-in-progress, and the surprised and disappointed student is…displeased with the color…a color that was perfectly satisfactory when floating on the raw white canvas.” The process of choosing colors is still a tough one. The choice between choosing safe colors that will most likely succeed versus selecting random colors that may or may not work is still a decision that I have to make. Regardless, these are decisions that should be made in the beginning of an artistic endeavor, so as to save Dora from an unpleasant portrait.