A limited Palette…For Clothes and Paint

Well, I wasn’t planning on painting a great deal before I move house but I got to thinking about the colours of clothes and this eventually led to a painting.

Because of the autism I suspect, I hate clothes shopping, and at the same time I can’t wear clothes that don’t match properly colour-wise – it makes me feel sick.  Plus clothes have to be comfortable for me and a bit big so they’re not tight.  Basically I’ve not bought any new clothes for ages and my sturdy breathable waterproof jacket is getting harder to do up since the zip is breaking.  Now last time I bought a new anorak I couldn’t choose the colour because of the stock they had available and I ended up with this horrible bright pink – yuck!  I have struggled with it for two years now.   So I decided this time that, no matter how much I hate clothes shopping, I would not buy something I wasn’t happy with.  I ended up going for a nice navy blue breathable waterproof with a fleece inside.  The main colour is navy blue with some small bits of orange.

It looks like this:

 

Then after ordering this online I thought about all the other clothes I need to buy and  I decided that I would use a technique I’ve used previously, when I was first teaching.  I was working in a Catholic primary school and I had to look smart, but my pay was very very low so I had to do it on a budget.  I decide to opt for clothes all following the same colour scheme – that way, everything I owned would go well, colour-wise, with everything else.  I chose browns and creams at the time and it worked really well.  Plus I always secretly felt like a Jedi which was very useful in the classroom LOL!!!!  (Although I never told the children or staff about this ).  Now I currently wear a lot of jeans becuase they’re hard wearing, paint washes out quite well and I like blue.  Anyway, eventually I came up with a limited palette which I like for all new clothes I’m going to buy for the next few years.  First of all I was going to just paint patches of each colour just to see what it all looked like but then I drew out a simple pattern and made an abstract painting with the colours.  It was a  real blessing to work in abstract again – I love clear lines and shapes – so this project was fun.

When I’d finished it looked a bit dull so I got out some acrylic gold metallic paint and added some of that:

And here’s my finished colour scheme painted in abstract:

It’s painted in gouache with some gold acrylic on top using cold pressed watercolour paper.