Harvey Parson War

For my Parson’s Challenge, I chose to further develop the theme of my painting, War. Originally, it had been a singular exploration of color and texture, centered around the negative feelings associated with the color red. My new piece, Confusion, focuses on the unfavorable connotations that the color yellow possesses. The goal of this collection was to capture the instinctual impressions behind the colors, through brush technique painting style, without stating it outright. I felt the best way to do this would be through an abstract composition. While I do believe in comprehensive planning and sketching, with these pieces, I found that the most interesting elements came as “happy accidents”. I began each oil painting with a general idea of the techniques and composition I would employ, but the artwork would manifest as
My preliminary plan was simply to build up the colors to a deep, crimson hue, and let that be the focal point of the piece, but it became increasingly difficult to produce a concentrated color that would have the necessary consistency. The paint would fly off in chunks rather than a spatter. The “happy accident” came when I attempted to scrape off these dried chunks, and discovered the resulting resemblance to bullet holes. It was unintentional, but now prevails as the focal point of the piece. Portraying the connotations of the color red is painless, blood, war, anger, etc., but I wanted to challenge myself for this second piece. I chose the color yellow because it is predominantly positive. It represents youth, joy, and sunshine, yet until recently I have always viewed it rather negatively. The right hue almost evokes a sense of nausea, and so I used this feeling as the concentration of the