Paracas Color Challenge Grid Drawings

How many colors can you invent?

Early Intermediate Period 200 BCE-700 CE

• Paracas culture:– 400 BCE - 200 CE– Desert peninsula and a nearby river valley on the south coast of Peru– Funerary Mantles:

• Textiles used to wrap the bodies of the dead • Dry climate preserved the textiles, buried in shaft tombs beneath the sands

of the desert• Woven cotton with designs embroidered onto the fabric in alpaca or vicuña

wool imported from the highlands• Used over 150 vivid colors, majority derived from plants• Motifs: feline, bird, serpent, but mostly the human figure, whether real or

mythological• Common theme: Humans dressed up or changing into animals

Paracas Area: Desert Peninsula

Embroidered funerary mantle, Paracas, southern coast of Peru, 1st century CE, 4’7” x 7’10”

Dancing, chanting, and trancing…floating being (religious practitioners or possibly the deceased) carries batons and fans, or knives and hallucinogens (scholars don’t agree)

Assignment• It has been recorded that the Paracas culture used over 150

vivid colors in their textiles• I challenge you to first develop as many VIVID (bright) colors as

you can using colored pencils– Keep in mind that sometimes, in order to make colors look bright you

have to consider what colors you use around them (if you use dark colors next to bright colors, it might add contrast and make the bright colors seem brighter!

• Record how you make each color (which color is layered on top of which color)

• Then, design a work of art that uses as many of those colors as possible

Assignment• Choose a subject that is best expressed using vivid colors (i.e.

a person or animal whose personality is bright and bubbly)• OR you can be ironic…like using bright colors to depict a

typically dark and dreary subject, like Eeyore or Edgar Allan Poe

• The point is to be thoughtful about how your bright colors will relate to the content you choose to draw, and what will be communicated to the viewer through this relationship

• This can be a portrait, a landscape, still life, nearly anything as long as you are working from an image that allows you to utilize the grid technique

Example (Still Life)

Example (Still Life/Landscape)

Example (Still Life/Landscape)

Example (Still Life/Landscape)

Example (Still Life/Landscape)

Example (Portrait)

Example (Portrait)

Example (Portrait)

Example (Portrait)

Example (Portrait Detail)

Example (Still needs a background)

Example (Still needs a background)

Example (Portrait)

My Example: In-ProgressWorking with colored pencil is a PROCESS…take your time;

sketch first, then start layering colors

My Example: In-Progress

My Example: Finished

My Example: In-Progress

My Example: In-Progress

My Example: In-Progress

My Example: In-Progress

My Example: Finished

My Example: In-Progress

My Example: Finished

My Example: In-Progress

My Example: In-Progress

My Example: Finished