LOOKING FOR YELLOW

Yellow: my favorite color. 

Bright, cheery, light-filled, the color of the sun. 

I needed to find yellow this week.

As an artist, I use the color wheel to make colors shine. 

Yellow, by itself, can be soft and comforting. 

I add yellow's analogous colors -- green and orange -- around yellow to make yellow more varied.

I add purple, yellow's opposite, in the shadows, which makes the yellow more intense. These quiet studies give me time to reflect and focus. They aren't always easy to produce, but they are familiar and satisfying.

At this time of year, with all the rain we have had and the political tumult we've experienced, I needed to find yellow to bring in the light. I could paint things yellow all day, but walking around in a yellow world would become boring.

When our son Theo was three months old,  the two of us accompanied Bill on a business trip to Southern California. We stayed in a well-appointed hotel with tastefully decorated rooms. Because I was a new mom and Theo was napping, he and I spent much of the day in our room. At first, the room was soothing. The walls were painted a trendy version of peach, a soft, inviting color choice. The lampshades, chair coverings, bedspread, towels, carpets, and even the paintings on the wall all matched that same shade of peach. Within an hour, the peach overwhelmed me. I felt deprived of color and needed to walk outside just to see all of the colors around me.

It is easy to continue to use my favorite color and my favorite method of painting, but I know that without making an effort to stretch myself, to move outside of that comfortable bubble I created for myself, my world would become flat. I know I need to look for ways to add diverse and unusual elements to my artwork, just as I try to do in my life. I will not settle for the way I have done things in the past. That's how I grow.

What are you doing this week to step out of your comfort zone?