Pamela
by Michelle Armas
How would you describe your art and process?
Big saturated fields of color intersected with lines and scribbles and splotches of paint or chalk. It’s totally random and I paint purely by instinct.
How do you create what you refer to as “color cousins”?
I like to create new colors using the colors I already have on the canvas. For example, if I am doing blue and then decide I need green, I just add orange to the blue until I get green, then I use that green and add red to make brown. A painting looks harmonious if the colors are all cousins. I never use color straight from the tube, but it takes time to learn what pigments to mix to create what you are looking for, and the only way to learn is to experiment!
Tell us how you use lines in your paintings.
I love to scribble on my paintings. A few times I have had concerned clients alarmed by thinking that their children defaced the paintings with pencils, but for me it is an important part of the composition. I like to see them layered under and over paint, intersecting large areas or creating a jumble of tension wherever I want it.
How do you accomplish paintings so rich in texture?
I love to consider texture when I am thinking of a painting in a room. I love how chalk can look velvety, how metallic paint reflects light and how oil pastels layer over the rough canvas in little scales, like a snake. It is as much about how the color reflects light or stands off the canvas as the color of the pigment itself.
Antonia
by Michelle Armas
Looking at any abstract painting, the viewer always is seeking balance. It is what makes you subconsciously feel at ease when you look at a painting. The artist’s job is to walk the fine line between the symmetry and balance and the tension that you feel when a composition is off balance. It is like a conversation with the canvas, adding and taking away until it is balanced perfectly.
—Michelle Armas—