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Late January Yellow - a Process Meditation

sarahluczaj26

It's late January and there's a storm outside. I'm painting yellow.


The first impulse was a sharp, smooth layer of brightness, all ready for the black ink. Simple, direct contrast.


Then I was drawn to paint over an already-mostly-yellow canvas. The texture came through. Some darkness came through, There are always layers. I hated them, I enjoyed them, I hated them and then I enjoyed them more.


Then I saw that the yellow I had was too weak, and I added some Cadmium Yellow Hue. That was a good feeling, smearing it on with my hands, the music seemed to turn itself up, the motion and the feeling spread over the canvas, and then my eyes looked - it was too dark. One too against another too. It would be simpler to paint in the dark.


I found an oil paint crayon. The last time I used one of those was in the 1990's, that one was red, a very pure bright red and I painted a sun. It smelled good and you could press it insanely hard into the surface, and feel it give way.


This one is yellow, it's just the right yellow to not be either too... or too. I start to scribble, play and push. I stand back and that's when I see it. I've painted the walls of the buildings I loved the most in Krakow in the 1990's. The yellow that contained centuries of dirt and layers, and had seen yet not been destroyed by war.


Spontaneity contains history. It can't be any other way, as long as we still have bodies, and seasons, and colour.

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