The Questions Only You Can Ask

I currently have a couple of red paintings on the go. I love red and I wanted to spend some time exploring what I could do with it. How much of one painting can I get away with as ALL one colour? And how can I do it without that one colour becoming overbearing? After all, red is not exactly a shy colour!Once I have a question like this in mind, I can focus my efforts. I am no longer playing and experimenting with anything (as I do at the early stages) Now I am engaged in a specific exploration.I decided to use complementary colour to strengthen the impact of the red. That, of course, means adding some green. But my reds are highly saturated, which means that if I add a strong, saturated green, the impact will be to draw equal attention to the green. Each colour will zing when placed against the other and that's not my goal - I want red to be the star.I solved this by mixing a khaki green using black, yellow ochre and white. Here is a section of a current painting.Now the green still has an impact, but it is much more subtle, Instead of competing with red for all the attention, it is sitting back, gently highlighting the red.It's as if the khaki is saying "here, have you met my beautiful friend red?"The paintings are not done yet - I haven't found the right balance, but the question of how to make a beautiful red painting gives a focus to all my efforts.I am telling you this because perhaps it will help in one of your current paintings. Either the specific colour advice of choosing one colour to be the hero and then finding ways to highlight it. Or the more general advice to hone in on one question and to make one painting (or a series of paintings) all about answering that.I find this approach necessary because I LOVE paint. I love what happens when you layer paint. I love what happens when you glaze, I love what happens when you sand or scratch into paint. I love what happens when you throw it and when you apply it gently and when you draw line and when you paint big blocks of colour - I just love paint. That means that I often become attached to lots of different parts of a painting, even when I know the whole is not yet working. Look at this for example:Or this:YUM!I become enamoured. My heart stops. I am like a lovesick teenager. And then I get stuck - because if I keep all those things, the painting doesn't work.It's at this point that I have to remind myself that I get to make lots of paintings. They don't all have to contain everything. I can choose to make one about glazing and one about the colour red and one about the way that blue looks against the yellow and one about how many different shades of grey I can achieve in one painting ... in other words, I can focus each painting on a line of enquiry and then pursue that, letting go of the stuff that doesn't advance my quest.It is possible to set out with this intention and then explore it methodically. But I prefer to start by painting purely intuitively, having fun with paint and applying several layers, so that I start to get those interesting effects. And then, at some point, stopping and asking myself "what do I want this painting to be about?" Once that decision has been made, I begin to paint with intent.In the case of my red paintings, this means exploring ways to bring much more interest into the red areas through subtle value shifts, interesting paint application, the use of line ... the green is doing it's job - now I have to make the red work as effectively.In the case of your own work, only you know the questions you need to ask and the decisions you need to make. Is it to strengthen that portrait by focusing more on the eyes? Is it to use complementary colours to create points of interest in a still life? Is it to explore tone in an abstract painting? Or is it any one of a million other possibilities.The beauty of this work we do is that it's totally unique and personal. Every artist has his or her own questions. It can feel frightening to own your questions, but once you do, you can be assured that you are making truly personal work.If you'd like to learn more about strengthening your work and transform your relationship with art-making, you might enjoy my 'Find Your Joy' course. It's currently underway, but will run again early next year. If you'd like to know more, click here (and sign up if you'd like to know when we're ready to start again). You can also join me for free in my Facebook group where you can meet inspiring and encouraging artists from all walks of life. We can't wait to meet you!