Re: A misunderstanding, or just me ?
jammaster said:
There are 3 basic colors - red, blue and yellow + black and white. You can get every other colors from these basic colors.
get the picture?
I've got a picture of you, with a point flying past you at great speed
The colour issue is a non-issue. My point was that constraints enhance the development of creativity in that they focus control in specific areas. If you have no constraints you have less motivation to gain fine control in any one area.
Constraining yourself to limited numbers of colours removes your attention from having to deal with which particular colour you're using and instead focuses it on form, nuance and articulation.
It's quite a simple principle: You have a finite amount of attention, let's call this a. You have a finite number of things to dedicate that attention to. Let's call that b. Therefore, assuming equal distribution of attention amoung things you work on, the amount of attention paid to each thing is a over b - let's call this c. It obviously doesn't have to be equal, but this is just making a point.
My suggestion is that the more "c" you have - time dedicated to individual things - the more that particular thing will develop. Therefore there are a few ways to improve your control in each field.
1) Increase a, your finite amount of attention you dedicate to the whole.
2) Decrease b, your finite number of things that draw on your attention.
This all seems extremely obvious. If you dedicate time to something you get better at it. Limiting your range of colours will give you a better understanding of all the aspects of your art which don't rely on large numbers of colours - like form, control, nuance and so forth. Once you understand these things better you can introduce a wider range of colours and work on your control and nuance of those colours.
But without the foundation it's arguable that you will develop at a slower rate as an expressive artist, because expression exists independent of your colour palette. If you're a good expressive artist then more colours are just that - more colours. If you're not a good expressive artist then more colours are just a distraction from the things that actually matter.