The Importance of Color in My Artwork
Color has always been more than just a visual element to me - it’s a language of emotion, memory, and connection. When I create, I’m not simply filling space on a canvas with pigment; I’m building an experience through color. Whether I’m painting a quiet landscape, a portrait, or an abstract piece, color becomes the heartbeat of my work, guiding how viewers feel, think, and respond. It’s the most immediate way I communicate without words, shaping mood and atmosphere in ways that go far beyond representation.
The Emotional Power of Color
Every color holds an emotional weight. Blues can calm or sadden, reds can energize or agitate, and yellows can lift the spirit or overwhelm, depending on how they’re used. In my art, I strive to balance these forces; to use color intentionally, not randomly. I often begin a new piece by exploring how I want people to feel when they encounter it. From there, I select a palette that aligns with that emotional goal.
For example, in my landscape work, I may lean toward cooler tones - soft greens, muted blues, and earthy browns - to evoke a sense of stillness and reflection. In contrast, when I want to convey vitality or tension, I push the saturation and contrast, using bold oranges, deep crimsons, or unexpected purples. These decisions are rarely analytical in the moment; they’re instinctive, built from years of observing how colors interact and how they make me feel personally.
Nature as a Source of Color Inspiration
A Long Walk #4 - Original Art, Nathan Gibbs
Much of my color inspiration comes directly from nature. The world around us provides an endless spectrum of hues that are never static, shifting with light, weather, and season. I’m constantly fascinated by the way sunlight transforms a familiar scene, turning a dull hillside into a symphony of golds and violets at sunset.
When I paint outdoors or draw from memory, I’m not simply reproducing what I see. I’m interpreting it through color, translating the essence of a place rather than its literal tones. Nature teaches me that there’s no such thing as “wrong” color - only harmony or dissonance, depending on the story you want to tell. That’s something I carry into every piece I create.
Color as a Storytelling Tool
Beyond emotion and beauty, color tells stories. It can symbolize time, culture, or memory. A faded blue might recall a childhood summer sky, while a streak of red might hint at conflict or desire. When I’m working on a series, I think about how my color choices can connect individual pieces into a broader narrative.
In my more abstract works, color often becomes the main character. Without recognizable forms or figures, viewers are invited to respond purely to the relationships between hues - the push and pull between light and dark, warm and cool, calm and chaos. Each viewer brings their own history to the experience, finding personal meaning in the colors I’ve chosen. That’s one of the most rewarding parts of being an artist: realizing that color allows for infinite interpretations, all valid and unique.
The Technical Side of Color
While color is emotional and intuitive, it’s also deeply technical. Understanding how pigments interact, how layering affects tone, and how lighting changes perception is crucial to creating a cohesive piece. I spend a lot of time experimenting with these effects, mixing paints to find subtle transitions, glazing to build depth, and balancing complementary hues to create visual tension.
Sometimes the smallest adjustment - a touch more cadmium yellow or a cooler shadow - can transform an entire composition. Those decisions may seem minor, but they’re what give a painting its life. Mastering color means learning to see it not just as surface, but as energy that moves across the canvas.
Inviting the Viewer Into the Experience
Ultimately, my use of color is about connection. I want people to feel something when they stand in front of my work, to sense the warmth of sunlight, the chill of a gray morning, or the quiet pulse of a deep blue horizon. Color bridges the gap between artist and viewer, inviting people to slow down and engage emotionally.
Each painting becomes a conversation, a way of saying, this is how I see the world, how I feel it, how I hope you’ll experience it too. That’s why color is so important in my artwork: it transforms paint into emotion, vision into story, and image into shared experience.
Color isn’t just part of my process - it is the process. It’s how I explore, communicate, and connect. Through color, I find endless ways to express the unseen and remind myself, and hopefully others, of the beauty and complexity in every shade of life.