In high school I took my first painting class my sophomore year. During that class, I filled up a sketchbook (or two) of watercolor samples, strokes from different paintbrushes, and learned how important it was to practice and classify the different tools and techniques you use in a particular set of skills. I still have yet to manage this with calligraphy, but it’s definitely on my someday-list! I love looking back to this sketchbook to see not only how far I’ve come as an artist, but also to look back at how those fundamentals in practice and color theory really trained me as an artist before I ever knew that graphic design existed. When I saw these vintage color studies, I immediately thought back to this class and how much I miss working with color in a tangible way. Just check out the tonal quality of these colors. I’m pretty into it. Also, picking tones from physical practice is something that you just really can’t emulate in the digital environment. Add more water to a color, or drop a home-mixed black right in; that’s just all sorts of crazy when you’re used to one-click attainment. I don’t know if I’m ready to bust out my old watercolors—and I’d be really surprised if they were actually useable and not completely dried up at this point—but these are helping me reevaluate how I got about picking colors. Annnnnd I really miss painting. Just putting that out there.

How do you go about picking colors? Do you usually find inspiration online, or do you look to things physically to figure that out? While I don’t think I’ll be losing my online research anytime soon, it’s always nice to look to alternative routes, right?

Sidenote, that calligraphy is killer.