Playing with Color

I found this quote from Paul Klee in my email this week:

"Colour has taken hold of me; no longer do I have to chase after it.  I know that it has hold of me forever."

I've been thinking quite a lot about color this week because of the drawing I'm working on.

Its title used to be Frame for the Map because I intended it to be a frame for my Map of the World. 

I thought blue and gray would be go well and not overpower the map's colors so I started the outline with Ecoline cold gray light ink. 

Then I thought I'd add my favorite, go-to-color, Winsor-Newton yellow ochre. And for the background, or wall paper, Daler Rowney Turquoise and Process Cyan.  Then to make the browns richer and deeper, Winsor Newton Indian Red. And then I thought, this is getting to be a lot of blue and brown.  It that ok?

Meanwhile, and now I'm getting a little circuitous, in my talk last Monday on Artists Talk on Art with Eileen Hoffman about Saint Barbara and Rapunzel I showed this image of what I thought was the façade of a Greek Orthodox Church of Saint Barbara in Chinatown.At least when I googled Saint Barbara's Church it came up. I didn't know exactly what this was but, because I think it's so beautiful I decided to act like it's Saint Barbara's until I learn different.

And I did.  Learn different, that is. Deborah Ugoretz spoke up to say, "That's not a church, it's the Eldridge Street Synagogue."  So I googled that and saw this image of their interior. 

These colors took hold of me! That golden oak and radiant blue!

I returned to work on the frame for the map with renewed excitement.  But the more I looked at it with the map the more I thought that the blues overwhelmed its subdued grays.  So I'll rename this piece Formerly for the Map and put another lightning shot into it; the lightning should hold it own.  Then I'll re-start a frame for the map in black and gray, and try to resist the call of the wilder colors.

The Lightning shot, by Gary Hershorn, is smaller than the map, so I'll fill in more pillars to surround the opening, and maybe add blue curtains.   What to put in the arched white space?  It was empty for a while but then I thought, 'tis the season, so how about a wreath?  A pagan symbol taken over by Christians, just as Christmas adopted the date of a pagan solstice celebration. Let's have three wreaths!

Here's the next phase-the blue curtains!

And a background to the wreaths.

I"ll probably put a dancing Barbara on those steps.  Maybe I'll have it to show you next week. Which will be Christmas Eve, so here's something to help you get into the spirit.