12 Apr Artist Judith Kunzlé shows how to use color – May 3
Artist Judith Kunzlé shows how to use color to convey form, movement and space at May 3 RAA meeting
The Rossmoor Art Association (RAA) is pleased to offer a presentation by painter and illustrator Judith Kunzlé on using color to convey form, movement and space. The presentation is on Wednesday, May 3 from 1:00 to 3:00pm in Art Studio One at Gateway.
Using color—and in particular primary colors—to convey form, movement and space has long been Kunzlé’s primary focus. “Throughout the nineties and up until 2005, I experimented with ways to simplify color to achieve a sense of space. I started exploring how color could be used to make form on paper something you could feel. I painted landscapes with primary colors to figure out which colors come forward and which recede. And I used bell peppers with quirky shapes to explore color and space.”
Kunzlé also began using this approach to depict figures. On May 3, she will demonstrate using primary colors to portraying dancers in movement.
“Why is simplifying color and space such an important issue for me? Because I am fascinated with moving bodies, and movement is best expressed by a body in space. To draw and paint moving bodies, we need to simplify our methods.”
During this time, Kunzlé began working intensely with dancers, sketching at rehearsals and then using these life sketches as the inspiration for paintings done in her studio. She prefers sketches to photographs because, she says, “photographs offer too much irrelevant detail, while sketches and our memory record only the essence of what we see.”
At a dance rehearsal in 2001, Kunzlé realized that light from both sides, as opposed to a single source of light, is the key to constructing form and space on a white surface. In the following years, working on both paper and canvas and with charcoal, pastels, ink, watercolors and acrylics, she developed this method to portray not only the movement of dancers but still-lives, portraits and landscapes using yellow, red and blue.
Kunzlé was born in Switzerland and began her career in Bern as a graphic artist and illustrator. She then lived for 30 years in the Cook Islands. There she illustrated schoolbooks for a United Nations project, worked with dancers and choreographers to draw and paint Polynesian and Melanesian dancers, and illustrated native plants and animals for the Cook Islands Natural Heritage Project.
In 2013, she moved to Hawaii where she worked with hula dancers.
Kinzlé has also worked with OTC San Francisco and Alonzo King Lines Ballet in San Francisco, and with contemporary dancers in New Zealand, tango dancers in Argentina and hip-hop and salsa dancers in Europe. “By drawing live dancers, I pick up gestures and movements I can feel and relate to.”
All residents of Rossmoor are welcome to this free event, and refreshments will be served during the break. For more information please contact Marcy Wheeler, RAA Program Chair, at 787-9159.
The Rossmoor Art Association (RAA) is pleased to offer a presentation by painter and illustrator Judith Kunzlé on using color to convey form, movement and space. The presentation is on Wednesday, May 3 from 1:00 to 3:00pm in Art Studio One at Gateway.
Using color—and in particular primary colors—to convey form, movement and space has long been Kunzlé’s primary focus. “Throughout the nineties and up until 2005, I experimented with ways to simplify color to achieve a sense of space. I started exploring how color could be used to make form on paper something you could feel. I painted landscapes with primary colors to figure out which colors come forward and which recede. And I used bell peppers with quirky shapes to explore color and space.”
Kunzlé also began using this approach to depict figures. On May 3, she will demonstrate using primary colors to portraying dancers in movement.
“Why is simplifying color and space such an important issue for me? Because I am fascinated with moving bodies, and movement is best expressed by a body in space. To draw and paint moving bodies, we need to simplify our methods.”
During this time, Kunzlé began working intensely with dancers, sketching at rehearsals and then using these life sketches as the inspiration for paintings done in her studio. She prefers sketches to photographs because, she says, “photographs offer too much irrelevant detail, while sketches and our memory record only the essence of what we see.”
At a dance rehearsal in 2001, Kunzlé realized that light from both sides, as opposed to a single source of light, is the key to constructing form and space on a white surface. In the following years, working on both paper and canvas and with charcoal, pastels, ink, watercolors and acrylics, she developed this method to portray not only the movement of dancers but still-lives, portraits and landscapes using yellow, red and blue.
Kunzlé was born in Switzerland and began her career in Bern as a graphic artist and illustrator. She then lived for 30 years in the Cook Islands. There she illustrated schoolbooks for a United Nations project, worked with dancers and choreographers to draw and paint Polynesian and Melanesian dancers, and illustrated native plants and animals for the Cook Islands Natural Heritage Project.
In 2013, she moved to Hawaii where she worked with hula dancers.
Kinzlé has also worked with OTC San Francisco and Alonzo King Lines Ballet in San Francisco, and with contemporary dancers in New Zealand, tango dancers in Argentina and hip-hop and salsa dancers in Europe. “By drawing live dancers, I pick up gestures and movements I can feel and relate to.”
All residents of Rossmoor are welcome to this free event, and refreshments will be served during the break. For more information please contact Marcy Wheeler, RAA Program Chair, at 787-9159.
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