Many art students of mine, especially those in my beginning level classes, have expressed that they have a hard time choosing between similar colors.  “When do I use an ultramarine blue vs. a cobalt blue?  How many reds should I have on my pallet?”  More recently, I have been seeing more and more validity in working in a limited pallet, or a pallet derived from just a few colors.  The obvious benefit is that the artist does not have as many “out of the tube” choices (and can create a painting much faster); the added benefit is that a limited pallet enables more advanced artists to really focus on creating a mood through color.

As a painter, I’ve always premixed my colors before I start a painting, but more recently I’ve adopted a painting method described in James Gurney’s “Color and Light” book which incorporates painting with a “color gamut”.  This method eliminates a large portion of the color wheel to enable simplicity, but also a more sophisticated approach to creating a colorful painting.

The Collaboration of 30 Yellow Barn Artists

Chautauqua Tower Studio, Glen Echo Park

7300 MacArthur Blvd

Glen Echo, MD 20812

www.yellowbarnstudio.com

For the month of February the Yellow Barn Studio and Gallery, which boasts 600 members and 40 classes per semester, will be showing off some of its best and brightest advanced level students in the Chautauqua Tower 1^st floor studio.  Starting February 2^nd, the Chautauqua Tower (“Stone Tower”), which usually houses one resident artist for one month, will display the collaboration between 30 Yellow Barn artists.  The artists will be working on one large 72 x 28” painting/drawing in a relay style fashion.  They will each display their unique styles and different approaches to painting.  The artists’ progress will be documented throughout the month with photographs that will be posted on the Yellow Barn blog (http://yellowbarnstudio.blogspot.com/) and Facebook.  These posts will allow each artist to discuss what they are working on as well as their different approaches and impressions of painting.   The Yellow Barn invites the public to visit the space, ask questions of our artists, and see the artists working together.

“I’m trying to show what makes the Yellow Barn one of the premier places to take art classes in the DC, Maryland, and Virginia area.  While we have a reputation for great instructors that produce great artists, we also have a great community that enjoys working together.” says J. Jordan Bruns, Yellow Barn Studio Manager and collaboration organizer.  “Last year we did a relay with the instructors, this time I thought it would be fun to see how our members do.”

 The Chautauqua Tower Studio will be open to the public daily February 2^nd through February 28^th, 11:00am-5:00pm.

 For any additional inquiries please email J. Jordan Bruns, Yellow Barn Studio Manager at Jordan@jjbruns.com.

Get ready for a flood of new painting…

Also, tune in to 88.5, NPR Washington DC on December 9th at 1:00pm, or Saturday December 10th at 7:00am for the “Metro Connection”  I’ll be the featured story!