I have an art mentor… he is the wonderful Jeff Makin (I know, I know… lucky gal hey?). Jeff and I started, what I would call, art therapy about a year ago now after I attended his life drawing session at the brilliant James Makin gallery in Collingwood. It was Jeff that reintroduced me to Johannes Itten’s book The Art of Color and set me to the task of painting Itten’s exercise of the representation of the four seasons.
This is a great exercise and not only to execute but to have and be able to test on anyone. It astounded me to read the following in Itten’s book:
“It is worth mentioning that though I have diligently sought opinions on my color representation of the seasons, I have never yet found anyone who failed to identify each or any season correctly.”
Isn’t that amazing? And its true, I tested this on my parents, friends, different age groups, people who are arty and those who are not and they all guessed my seasons. Guess for yourselves…