The colour lilac keeps catching my eye: I don’t know why?

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Just to be clear, lilac is not my favourite colour. In fact it’s way down my list of not favourite colours.  So far down I never gave it much thought, until last year.  Being a fine artist who loves colour, I enjoy collecting them.  Taking photos of inspiring combinations that catch my eye.  It’s a bit like gathering a mobile Pantone colour chart on my phone.  Lilac accents have been creeping into these photographs and I’m not entirely sure why.

Very Peri

One theory behind the appearance of these lilac accents was the arrival of Very Peri, Pantone’s 2022 colour of the year.  Truth be told it’s a colour that leaves me cold and just a tad uneasy.  Like being trapped in an overly floral powder room that’s been liberally doused in pungent perfume and not a window in sight.  This may not sound too torturous, but after ten minutes would surely become quite unpleasant.  You may be sensing my disappointment with Pantone’s colour choice.  I’m just amazed it had such a lasting impression and has brought a once ignored colour to the fore.

Lilac flowers and leopards spots

When a new year gains traction and greens and browns of winter give way to floral blooms, the emergence of lilac flowers is something I always look forward to.  Each year I enjoy their arrival and wonder at the mass of tiny flowers, packed tight, in their curious conical forms.  I’ll take photos of them and marvel at the variety of colours, tints and tones.  All of course in the spectrum of purple that, in anything other than a flower, has never appealed to me.

I take these photos because they are beautiful, they are nature’s loveliness and a feast for the eyes.  However, like the spots of a leopard (a train of possibly controversial thought, perhaps best kept for another day), they are exquisite in their natural state of being and very quickly seem to jar when their colour or pattern is transferred onto other things.  This of course is all a matter of opinion as shades of purple and quite possibly purple leopard print are embraced by many.  Maybe it’s that fussy flowers have a reputation of being painted in fussy ways and thoughts of misty 1980’s florals spring to mind… and not in a good way.

This of course is a detail of a hydrangea but it’s shot lilac shades are mesmerising.

Ladies in lavender

Perhaps it’s purple’s reputation that I need to overcome before being able to embrace its full spectrum.  Terms like ‘ladies in lavender’ haven’t exactly helped it’s street cred.  Mind you, I seem to recall the film of the same name being quite good; if not a little wistful.  All this brings to mind my Royal Collage of Art interview strategy.  The stakes were high and I was determined to be a memorable candidate so decided to dress from head to toe in purple!  This included a lilac velvet top, lavender mohair cardigan and stay pressed Farah trousers in a rather violent shade of periwinkle.  What can I say, I was young and enthusiastic.  The strategy actually worked, I got my place and not just for being a vision in purple.  However this day of purple saturation may have ultimately doomed any lingering love for it.  I’ve never worn purple again!

Medicinal maters

Shades of lilac also seem to pop up on pharmaceutical packages.  It’s like there’s a conspiracy out there that if your medicine is dispensed in a package of soft lilac tones you’re less likely to feel bad about taking it.  Colour theory does suggesting that lilac is supposed to be soothing.

It must however be a real challenge creating attractive packaging for lotions and potions normally purchased in hushed tones at the chemist, due to the often delicate nature of their necessity.  Don’t get me wrong, I rather admire the graphic simplicity of a lot of medial packaging.  Succinctly displaying factual information on a small box while making it look different from every other small box on the chemists counter is no mean feat.  The use of saccharine shades and crisps whites often used on this type of packaging has a bold look.

Is it any wonder that artists such as Damien Hirst have found inspiration in the medical aesthetic. His Notting Hill Gate bar and restaurant the Pharmacy was a favourite haunt of mine back in the late 1990’s. The clean lines and bright colours were so much fun.

Acceptance is key

The further I dive into this increasingly controversial colour the more I feel waves of negativity rolling over me.  It goes against the grain to be anything other than upbeat while writing, it’s just how I’m wired.  However there may be a chink of hope.  While preparing photographs to illustrate this blog I’ve really enjoyed working with the images.  Possibly more for the memories they evoke but also for the realisation that using accents of purple might be acceptable after all.  Perhaps this is how I will learn to embrace the colour.  Accepting its ability to enhance a picture rather than actively avoiding it.  Avoidance feels like a negative action and, like many negative actions, is always much harder work than positive ones.

Plums

This lark into lilac is also reminding me that, form time to time, I have used shades of purple in my work.  It first popped up in studies for the Cut Glass collection.  In my defence a number of deep purple plums took a staring roll in the finished compositions.  Although it was with some trepidation that I used them, not being entirely convinced that I could successfully work with their deep purple colour.

More recently lilac was chosen to adorn the glorious hair do of Joan, one of the portraits in Homespun Girls collection.  The colour was used on purpose to be slightly controversial and stand out, it also helped illustrate her theatrical backstory. 

In the autumn lilac popped up in my sketches.  Against my better judgment I threw a lilac highlighter, I’d successfully been ignoring, into my pencil case just to see what would happen.  It brought an unexpected warmth to a series of M1 road trip drawings.  You can see the results in a previous blog.  Since then I’ve been doing some colour mixing experiments and shades lilac and other purples have appeared.  I’ve used the new colours to make collage papers and have been playing with them in some mixed media pictures created during a workshop..

It’s still early days for embracing lilac, but after finding its way into a goal setting exercise for the year ahead I know it’s trying to tell me something. Part of the exercise was to do a meditative visualisation. It’s only the second time I’ve don’t such a thing and believe it or not gorgeous soft layers of lilac appeared in my mind. The first time I did a visualisation was two years ago. The images I saw then are now appearing in my work. The mind is a powerful thing!

Would you like to know more about the colours in my work?

Part of my plan for the year is to develop a colour book. I’d like to be more sensitive in how I use colour and better understand it’s value in a painting. Sign up to my news letter and I’ll let you know how it goes.