Is Colour Really Important In Your Paintings? Does Colour represent emotions or feelings or anything symbolically?

[xmela...@hotmail.com]

Hi! My name is Tammy and I'm a grade 12 art student at Sacred Heart. I
was just wondering, but is colour really important in your paintings?
Do certain colours in your paintings represent anything in particular,
whether it be moods or feelings?

[laur...@lauraleekharris.com]

Hi Tammy,
This week is the final week. I hope everything is going well. Yes
Colour is very important to me. There is spirit in colour and I
respond to bright colours. I usually start out with Quinacridone
Burnt Orange which is close to a blood red and I use that colour to
start because that is the base of all life. It represents the
beginning of life, the red of my race and the red of mother earth. I
never use black. I prefer to mix it using the Theloe Blue Green which
is the exact opposite of the Burnt Orange on the colour wheel. I love
complimentary colours because they harmonize and mix into black well.
I use transparent colours as apposed to opague so they can be washed
on in layers. I also love using Ultramarine Blue with white till it
becomes a 3 in value, if 0 is the lightest tint and 10 is the darkest
shade. I find this value of 3 in Ultramarine Blue and white tint to
represent the ethereal and spiritual, the smoke and mist, the God, the
Messenger, Eagle, the Creator, Gitchie Manitoo and I use it in
combination next to cadmium red light. The combination of these two
bring about the spiritual to human element, the meeting of love in
forgiveness with purpose. I hope this answers your questions.

Good luck with your work and I look forward to meeting you on
Thursday,
LauraLee