Mon 15 Sep 2008
Metasepia pfefferi, or the Flamboyant Cuttlefish, is one cool little cephalopod. It usually dresses in drab browns, but when threatened, it lights up like a carnival. Not only does it sport a cool color scheme, it also has poisonous flesh (probably related to color, right?), AND it sort of walks along the muddy bottoms of the Indo-Pacific using its fourth arms. And they’re tiny, rarely exceeding 3 inches. CUTENESS
6×8″ Gouache on Cradled Gessoboard
Tue 9 Sep 2008
This will be the last of my discussions of warm and cool colors… partially because I ran out of color combinations, and partially because I didn’t learn all that much. But I had to finish the project.
Purple is today’s mix of choice. Warm red and warm blue (upper left) make a nice warm purple… on the brown side. Cool red and cool blue (upper right) make a cooler, more traditional purple color. Makes sense, right?
But cool red and warm blue (lower right) make a quite vibrant purple. I’m really not sure why, except that warm red is so vibrant on its own. This whole thing makes me wonder if maybe I needed to pick my warm and cool pigments so that they were as equal as possible… But then again, cool red and warm blue (lower right) make a horrible muddy brown, as expected. The dichotomy lends weight to the theory that my single pigment tubes may not, indeed, be only one pigment. Hmm.
The whole thing taught me only ONE thing: premix your color and test it first, because you never know exactly what you’re going to get.
p.s. football started. GO BEARS!
Fri 5 Sep 2008
Wow, Dragon*Con was fun. And full of sales. Which rocks. Will resume regular posting schedule soon. Love, Meg