Vermilion Summer - Part 1

I did three pastels over the last few days. They began more abstract and then got less so, which is not usually what happens to me.

This is the first, and most abstract of the three. This began as a bunch of pen lines from blind contouring while looking at a favorite Jane Filer painting. The only recognizable item from that painting is the hammerhead shark in the bottom portion. I love that shape in her painting, and the blind contour came out a slightly differently shape here - my hand’s homage. I kept it, and it influenced how I interpreted the other shapes, including the several nearby lozenges which got fish tails added and yellow pastel. That yellow fish on ultramarine background would be familiar to anyone who has been looking at my work for over ten years, since they used to show up in all sorts of places.

When I was about a third of the way through this piece, the idea of finishing with a red ground nudged my elbow hard. The particular red pastel I chose, brand new when I started on this piece, was almost used up when I finished the third painting. It’s a Nupastel, and I was about to peel off the last of the paper wrapper, with the name, so I finally looked.

It’s a vermilion… I was overwhelmed with childhood memories. I remembered an innocent, pre-self-conscious time when I got a big box of Crayolas from my grandparents. The first crayon I completely used up was Vermilion. I was obsessed with the color and with the name. I recalled looking for vermilion during kindergarten coloring time and not finding it. The teacher asked me what I was looking for, and told me they didn’t have it in the 8 and 16 color sets available in school (mine was a 64, I think). she gave me an orange crayon. I was disappointed. In comparison, orange seemed faded, pinky, pumpkinny. I switched to blues.

So this weekend was like coming back to that five year old time and that hot red orange track.

More (including the other two pieces) in the next two parts.

18 x 24 - Pastel and Sharpie on kraft paper

PS - Squarespace kept underlining my “vermillion” spelling of the color. The double “L” better describes my feelings about this color. I was tempted to disregard the correction and leave it “vermillion,” and then I decided to correct it and keep the better spelling for my own inner use.