120 Colors

During the spring testing of 2005 I drew this piece beginning with a grid. Using Prismacolor Sticks, I drew expressive lines across my grid. Then I added circles inside each box. I proceeded to blindly pick six colors at random as I filled in each box and the circles within. Filling out testing forms had inspired this part of my piece.


colored pencil on paper, 21" x 26.5"

After I rendering with the six colors, I again chose six random colors. When I reached the last of the 120 colors, I put the rest back in the box and picked at random again. This went on until I completed the piece.

From the outset I was determined to use all 120 colors that came in the Prismacolor box. So often artists are advised to only use a limited palette. Anyway it took a while to finish this drawing.