The Living Palette: How Colour Speaks to the Artist’s Soul.
One of the greatest joys for artists is colour: we delight in its beauty, wrestle with its complexities, and return again and again to its endless possibilities. Over the years, I’ve delved into its many facets—each discovery revealing the endless world of colour to explore.
My journey began with an infatuation with colour theory, learning to work with hue, value, and saturation to enrich my representational work. I then got lost in the psychology of colour, uncovering how our choices shape viewers’ perceptions and transform the energy of a room. But the rabbit hole I’m loving exploring is the spiritual dimension of colour—how it resonates deep within the soul. This journey into colour has led along a path that’s slowly drifted away from representational art to creating abstract pieces. For the past few years I found with both photography and painting colour itself becomes the subject, inviting viewers to experience its pure, unspoken language.
Exploring colour from a scientific or theoretical perspective is endlessly fascinating—tracking pigment origins, understanding processing methods, and exploring how paints, pastels, watercolours, and pencils are crafted.
My favourite art store is La Maison du Pastel, a tiny shop tucked away in a hidden Paris courtyard. With no sign visible from the street and limited hours only on Thursday afternoons, it feels like a secret hideaway for pastel lovers. The moment you step inside, the owner and her assistant know exactly what you’re there for—and they’ll tempt you with trays of sumptuous, handmade pastels laid out by hue and value (I’m convinced they choose the tray by the colours you’re wearing). This is the very room where Degas and Whistler once shopped! You can feel the history and creativity lingering in the air.
I’ve devoured countless books on colour theory, but the real lessons have come through hands‑on play. My sketchbooks are filled with colour experiments—charts, wheels, swatches—where I mix pigments, observe the surprises, and note what delights or disappoints me. It’s in this playful exploration that true my understanding of colour began.
The detour into colour psychology opened my eyes to how hues can influence mood and emotion—but I’ve discovered that my true passion lies beyond theory. Chromotherapy, the study of colour’s healing effects, fascinates me, yet I choose to devote the limited hours in life to creating art—capturing light through my lens, drawing, and painting—rather than diving into every scientific nuance.
Ultimately, colour speaks to my spirit in ways that transcend practical science. Each hue carries its own life and resonance, the very essence God who created it.
Many artists have inspired me with this sacred view of colour. Franz Marc, Georgia O’Keeffe, Henri Matisse, Mark Rothko, and Helen Frankenthaler all treated pigment as a language of the soul rather than mere decoration. Marc, for example, wrote:
“Blue is the male principle, stern and spiritual. Yellow the female principle, gentle, cheerful and sensual. Red is matter, brutal and heavy and always the colour which must be fought and vanquished by the other two.”
He painted animals—horses, deer, and other creatures—as symbols of innocence, painted in these powerful, symbolic colours to reveal a more harmonious reality. In his letters, he spoke of colour’s ability to access higher truths and “speak” directly to the viewer’s spirit.
Over time, I’ve found myself drifting away from representational scenes toward pure colour exploration. I’ll begin with a soft sunset, a handful of beach stones, or a delicate bloom—then strip away detail until only colour remains, and I can listen to and feel what those hues want to say.
Colour is not something to tame but to celebrate—an ever‑evolving dialogue between artist and soul.
Have a beautiful day,
Bernadette