Color is an amazing and wondrous phenomenon. It touches each of us in unique ways. But when we create, we are often afraid to use colors freely, believing that we'll make the wrong choices. We have been taught that there is a right way to draw and paint and use color. But there is no right way to be creative. We can make art in any way we choose. Through practice and a willingness to trust ourselves, each of us can learn to use colors the way we want to.
After falling into a rut and losing the spark of creativity in her own work, fiber artist Lin Bentley Keeling was looking for a new direction. She researched other artists' creative paths and experimented with new design techniques and was suddenly struck one day by an unusual idea: forget about design principles and art theory and focus on color alone. As she experimented with this new idea, she developed her color journaling exercise, which focuses on playing freely with color.
In Color Journaling: Engaging and Expanding Your Creativity While Playing with Color, Keeling shares the color journaling exercise she developed in her studio practice and began teaching to her students. Over time, she developed six variations on the basic exercise which provide prompts for engaging through color with some external stimulus such as music, the works of other artists, the written work, the world around us and with different materials. Keeling also shares highlights from her creative path over the past 40 years, insightful approaches to a more fulfilling creative practice based on her research into creativity and the creative process, and stories that can help you discover your own creative path. Whether you are a practicing artist or just looking for a new creative outlet, Keeling's approach in Color Journaling: Engaging and Expanding Your Creativity While Playing with Color gives you new tools and techniques to help experience color by and for itself so that you can intuitively play with color again as you did when you were a child.
