Laments of Art School

Color and Design is crushing me to a paste and mixing me back up.


Color is such a central part of cultures and societies and this class is teaching me the raw foundations of color theory. I'll use my new ability in controlling colors to affect future moods, behavior, and perceptions. The course's workload is large and tedious, and for someone without fast craftsmanship, I find myself having to spend hours on our painting assignments.

This class has stolen many nights of sleep this semester, but the end is in sight. Here's the rough draft of our latest assignment: mix the colors and paint a self portrait using a muted complimentary color scheme. Blue is a primary color (which I had a tube of) and orange is the secondary compliment (which I had to laboriously mix using red and yellow) that I then desaturated using white for the highlights and black for the shadows. We were instructed to include an achromatic (black and white) area in our designs that matched the value (lightness or darkness) of it's corresponding color. Lastly, after spending tremendous time and effort on one rough draft, we had to inverse the color scheme (using the cool color for highlights and warm color for shadows) and paint another. And that was just the beginning.

I was up until 3:30 am last night finishing these up. I decided to narrate my experience through a short poem while I waited for my colors to dry.

The Laments of Art School 

by Gavin Shelton  

I'm up to my eyes in color.

My brush strokes tire like weary soldiers

Dragged across the sands of my canvas,

Haggard and traveling towards the edge of the earth.

My hands are cramped,

And I know that when I'm done

Blood, Sweat, and Tears will mix together.

The contrasts mute, my design emerges.

So I sit and I wait

And my hard work dries slowly.

I wait and I realize that life's a palette of balance

Between onerous mattes and convivial glosses.