Warm August days-

Here we are with a "real" summer going for us- nice in some ways but the shade looks good on a lot of days. Our "artist's evening" at Rocannini has been cancelled due to a death in the family of the owner.  Of course, the coffee shop remains open and the display is up. This is a fairly little one of Finn Slough. Hanging near the washroom - which can be a good location as it is a popular route!  I was using a fairly limited palette for this one. I don't always paint with the same colours. I think the choice can help make the mood. This week, I was working with magenta because I was painting dahlias - yet that isn't a colour that is always on my palette. I was reading about a book about black. "Black:the History of a Color" by Michel Pastoureau.  So far, I have resisted buying it as I have quite a few books about colour (explanation of spelling- he is American and uses "color", I am Canadian and use "colour")  Once considered not a colour, black has been perceived in many ways- In Egypt as the preferred colour for divinities associated with death, in the Middle Ages as a symbol of ill omens and evil, back to esteem in the Romanesque period in monastic robes, then even more so in the Reformation as a revolt against excessive pomp in Church displays through modernist artists and now to almost a cliche'. When I went to Art School, there were some teachers who were against the inclusion of black on the palette. A painter still has to use it with caution - unless in abstracts- so as not to create a "black hole" in a landscape - but there are lovely greens that can be mixed with blacks and yellows.  I can't remember, now, if I did that for this painting or not!  I may buy the book yet - but I am trying to weed out the book collection along with tidying up a few other things. "Less is more" - at least sometimes - but can there ever be *too much* in the way of art supplies? And can you ever throw much out? I have a bag of dried crystals to make rabbit skin glue should I ever decide to stretch and prepare a canvas from the very beginning again. Not likely, even with the canvas pliers also saved!