I’ve been back in the studio for several days now after a period where I was engaged in doing some maintenance projects around here. I have been progressively worse at compartmentalizing the tasks in my life so that when I work on something outside the studio I find it difficult to work for short periods in the studio on those days. As a result, once I am back in the studio I sometimes fall out of rhythm and have to find ways to regain it. For the first day or so, I seem to flounder around and everything seems just out of sync and flat. Throw in a material failure like I mentioned in yesterday’s post and it gets to be frustrating.
Yesterday, I finally turned back to my old ally, color. It seems that whenever I feel this creative frustration color is inevitably the answer for me. I don’t worry about what I am creating, simply start creating blocks of colors. Colors that are familiar to me and combinations that I haven’t used for a while. I aim for bold and dark-edged color then begin manipulating the gradation of the block to create a contrast within it, flushing out the flatness of the last few days.
It has to be intuitive for me, just grabbing colors and throwing them in. I’ve never used a colorwheel , never really tried to understand them. Whenever I have looked at them, the colors never made me want to see or use any of them. To me, they seemed to take out all of the emotion of the colors and make it dry and tasteless. I found that by using my own colors and taking the time I could find the emotion in the colors through this exercise.
It’s amazing how this simple exercise in color cleanses away the stifling feeling that had been there before and prods some hidden creative impulse. Suddenly, momentum is born and begins to move forward. Rhythm is nearly regained and I look forward to jumping back in today.
Here’s a little Sunday music with a title that fits this post. It’s Colors from Amos Lee with an assist from Norah Jones.
Redtree Times 