Surprise Invasion of the Pastel Colors

My artistic goal with Paint Floats has always been to modernize the look and use of marbled papers. I find that the best way for me to attempt this update is with color, rather than pattern.

The traditional marbled patterns seem timeless to me. They are organic yet symmetrical. There is repetition in most combed patterns. There are surprise elements in the stone patterns or the free-form stone patterns. See? Something for everyone. Repetition and surprise. Every taste is represented, everyone happy. All good stuff, right?

So, instead, I focus on color. I really like the colors to be bright and contrasting. If I sprinkle yellow in the tray, my next thought is, "now, where's my purple". Same with blue and orange, a favourite color combination of mine. I don't generally use soft pastels and I like the contrast of dark and bold strokes of black.

And that brings me to last night and the surprise invasion of the pastel-coloured marbled papers. I really needed to marble paper last night. I have some special orders to do and I ran out of papers with which to make products for my shop and the art fairs that I have coming up. I needed to get back into the studio. I was not able to do it this week because my tummy decided to try and digest my esophagus and I was out for a couple of days (incidentally, don't ever say the words "chest" and "pain" in the same sentence when trying to describe your two-day-old tummy ache to the appointment line at your doc's office. Because they will make you go to the ER. And if you think they can't make you go to the ER, think again because they will call and hound you until you go). In addition to all this, the weather is not cooperating. It's humid and that always makes the paints spread too much. And I was out of my favourite black so I needed to use my second-favourite black (which always comes out charcoal, not black, which can be pretty but is not good when you really want black).

The spreading paint and the lack of supplies was frustrating me, but the results were suprisingly pretty. All the papers I marbled last night have that decidedly "pastel" look about them. But I am surprising myself because I really, really LIKE them. In fact, I LOVE them. And I don't think I detest pastel-colored marbling anymore. It can be very modern looking even if the colors don't scream . So, here are the papers. The lines are sharp and the colors are fairly evenly distributed. They ARE subtle. And I love them.