Welcome to the Colour Time Podcast. I am your host
Vincent Taylor. This is the
podcast where we speak with professionals who work
with colour. Very often on the
show I'm chatting to folks within the film and
television industry because of
my background as a colourist. But the
goal of this podcast was to speak to
people in all sorts of disciplines who work with
colour and today we're gonna
do that. Today we're chatting to an amazing painter
Anna Evans. Anna is based
in New Zealand. She works with beautiful beautiful
colour. Check out the show
notes that'll link to her work but you're gonna
love this conversation. Let's go.
Take your seats because the hourglass is about to
turn. We are entering the world
of the micro podcast. Explore the craft, creativity
and science of professionals
who use colour to tell stories. Welcome to the
Colour Timer with Vincent Taylor.
Anna, hi. Thank you for joining me. Thank you for
having me. Absolutely. I should say
Kia ora because I actually grew
up in New Zealand but you are a New
Zealander but you're not a New Zealander. What's
your background? Yes. I was
born in Rochdale, England which is northern
Manchester and I migrated to
New Zealand Auckland area as well when I was 11.
Yeah so you're pretty much Kiwi
now right? Yeah well I feel like a
Kiwi but you know I guess culturally
identity wise I'm a migrant, long history of
migrants. Long history of migrants.
I migrated all around the world.
Well I'm gonna, two seconds before we
started the recording I said that I
have in the past sometimes started
interviewing people and forgot to start my sand
time out and I almost forgot
this time so I'm gonna start it. Are you ready for
the game show to begin? Here we
go. Now I discovered you or I kind
of actually my wife sent me a video of
something you had done. You were an artist, you're
a painter and she showed me this
really cool video you did talking about primary
colours. Now primary colours are
red, green and blue. Red, green and red, yellow and
red, yellow and blue. I'm
thinking of video. See I did
it already but you're saying
but you're saying no. You're saying you got a
different opinion. No yeah I'm
saying the primary colours are
cyan, yellow and magenta and they're the
subtractive primary colours. So
the primary colours you just first
mentioned red, green and blue are the additive
primary colours and the ones that we were
taught in primary school was red,
yellow and blue and the other ones I
dispute. So tell me about that. Why? Okay so I
guess this all started way
way way back in time when I was
probably about four or five and we were
learning primary colours at school and the teacher
gave us the red, the yellow
and the blue and told us that we can make green
with blue and yellow and yeah
we could make green and we can make
orange with red and yellow and we could
make orange and she told us that we can make purple
with blue and red but that's
not what happened because well she
had probably given us a warm red a
vermillion or something and a warm blue
and so when they mixed together they
made this kind of like almost I would say it would
be like a more darker brown
version of what I wanted like a kind of deep maroon
burgundy brown dried blood colour.
So I was never very happy with that and I always
wanted to make those really
vibrant pinks and purples that we get and then
years past years past I learnt a
bit more as I got older about
painting and mixing colours and then I was
introduced to a teacher that showed us that if we
used a cold red and a warm
red the cold red and the cold blue would give us
something closer to a purple but
it still wasn't quite right and then I started by
that stage I was about 15 or
16 and I was looking up on the internet all about
colour and my dad who happened
to teach science had one of those I guess they're
like slip things you shine
the light through and then I found out all about
red green and blue and how the
secondary colours of red green and blue are cyan
yellow and magenta and how that
related to print so all went through that process
and then I found out that
yes sure enough all the colour printers are cyan
yellow and magenta. Oh my gosh
what a journey. And it made perfect sense from
there that if we just go and
get magenta and blue we can make
beautiful purple so I managed to get
some paint and sure enough yeah I was
able to paint purples and pinks which is what I had
always wanted to do. What was the thing that you
was that like a kaleidoscope you
mean or what was that you're saying your dad had?
No so in in the physics department
and they have like I think it's called a slit thing
basically you shine light
through to see the light waves and I guess the
waves and the light shines
through and when you mix the colours up you can
even do it with light if you get
three torches with red green and blue light and
combine all the light together
it will show the white because all the light mix
you'll know that yeah and then
you get like red and blue and it will give you
magenta and then you get red
and green and it'll give you yellow so in light
that's how it works and so
what's happening is that the secondary
colours when they're mixing is making
the pigment primary colours so they're kind of
inside out versions of each
other. Yeah it does it does. I think it's to do
with because light how light
bounces off an object so when the Sun's shining
down and we're seeing something
that I guess to us appears green what's happening
is it's absorbing all of the
stuff that makes it magenta and that light's
bouncing back yeah and it
becomes green so I think that's why they work
inside out of each other but
the same thing happens with subtractive primary
colours so when we mix cyan and
yellow we get green and when we mix yellow and
magenta we get red or orange
depending on how we balance it out
and then between magenta and cyan we get
blue as we know it like that kind of ultra marine.
Oh yes. I guess we call it.
Now yes see I told you this would go fast I'm
already looking at the sand
timer, I go oh I've got so many more
questions. To me at least it speaks
volumes that as a little girl you kind of went hang
on that's that's not right
or that or at least it at least it
planted a seed or put a little splinter
in there where you just went oh it's not that's not
what it should be or whatever
and you it's not the right colour. No and you'd get
teachers that would say mix a
bit of white in it and be like okay mix a bit of
white in it and then it just was
like a mauve-y beige brown it wasn't purple you
know what I mean so and I was
always one of those I was a bit like you know I'm
the imprint new clothed child
that's like no no Miss that ain't right that's not
purple this is brown what this
is just not purple and then
oh my gosh they hated you right
hmm that's what I was one of those like know it all
kids I guess to be honest but
you what whatever
whatever it was in you to keep exploring
that I mean I've introduced you as a painter and oh
my gosh are you a painter
I love your work it's so and and and here's the
thing about your paintings
that I love so much they're really
really bright and colorful but they're
not as well it's this really it's really hard for
me to articulate yeah yeah well
thank you I guess - I hope it was a compliment
it was supposed to be
No, no. I'll take it.
it's an interesting that my
work has definitely gone through a big transition
period since I had my little
boy just because time is super
condensed and you don't have as much and
also just I guess - since like you're become
a mother you sort of it's
like another adolescence in many ways you just go
through a change I suppose
and I guess that reflects in my work as an artist a
little yeah maybe you paint
you know your landscapes but a lot of
birds what is it about the birds that
draws you in oh well that's again um that almost
feels like a lifetime ago
because since I had my boy I have been painting a
lot a few birds but not a
lot a large body of my work was birds and I don't
know why I was drawn to birds
for the longest time I guess that was a sense of
freedom and and that there were
all these birds that are bright colored and they're
not really of a memory of me
from when I was a small child where they're those
more brownie kind of gray
colors of UK birds like the colors
in New Zealand are wildly different to
where I come from as a child
like Manchester's really industrial
browns grays the sky itself is kind
of more often than not dull and when I
arrived in New Zealand it's like
super bright and colorful and there's all
these crazy looking exotic trees and I suppose the
birds are kind of a way of
capturing how I would view New Zealand before
migrants like me came do you know
what I mean like it's a land that didn't have
mammals until humans arrived
and brought them apart from a bat so I guess the
birds are like the original
owners of New Zealand well going going back going
- Going back a lifetime ago... - They were the ones that were here first
when I did do art history and I remember studying
don't ask me any names but I
remember studying some Kiwi painters you know
Europeans who came to New Zealand
and they were so struck by the
quality of the light and the colors and and
that really kind of changed the way that they they
painted or at least what they
explored I mean that sounds almost exactly like
you're what you're talking about.
Yeah well I guess it is because I mean I
obviously was 11 so it's I'm not
coming at it from an adult viewpoint
but it has always stuck with me the
intensity of light when I arrived here like I
remember the first morning we
woke up and it was an incredible sunrise it was
these beautiful pinks and oranges
and these gradients of just like an explosion of
magenta and orange it was
just the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen and I
was like well so this is where
we're living now oh cool this is amazing and then
later in the day we went out
and we went to Takapuna Beach and it was just
turquoise the water and I was
like whoa like I thought that this was something
from Treasure Island you know
because you'd see like - that's fantastic - but yeah a
lot different from where I
can I love I love I love watching you as you're
talking about color you just you
kind of light up for yourself and
it's wonderful it's really cool it's
probably my most favorite thing to talk about or
argue about well you said you
said that you know you haven't been
doing birds as much so so what have you
maybe moved on to another topic or yeah my latest
obsession actually has been
gardens yeah, obsession and
gardens and it all comes from again this is
related to color fascination with dahlias or
dahlias I believe they're
actually supposed to be pronounced as dahlias so
the way a dahlia grows yeah
potatoes potatoes well yes so what
I found out and this is what made me
obsessed with them is when you plant a dahlia seed
you have no idea what color
it's gonna come out or what shape so you I could
get a seed from a red dahlia
and when I plant it I don't know whether it's gonna
be a frilly double they call
them or like a single with one row of petals so
it's completely a surprise and
so when you plant the seed you have no idea what's
gonna come out and then like
between 70 and 90 days later you've got this
surprise flower and so I just
thought that's the coolest thing ever I can plant
like you know hundreds of
these things and I'm gonna have an explosion of
random colors and I don't
know what they're gonna be like and so I did it for
one season and I just fell in
love and then I just started growing
more and more and more and then I just
became obsessed with like crossbreeding dahlias and
then and then I was like oh
dahlias are cool and then there's all these other
flowers and so I just yeah
again that's after I had my son and I think it's I
started doing that because
when you're carrying up because I carried my boy
around I was one of those
mums that had the slings and he was just always
with me so gardening was like
this new creative outlet that I just fully threw
myself into and yeah when I
when I become obsessed with something I do...
When you're approaching a painting or when you're
starting a painting whether it be birds or the
gardens the plants the flowers do
you have a sense already of the colors that are
gonna go into that or do they
come as your painting? That's
interesting so like I've got this
work right here with me this one I did as a speed
painting so one of the things
I'm doing this year has been I really
want to speed myself up and get more
looser and fluid with how I paint so I've been
setting aside between an hour
and 90 minute sessions a day to do some paintings
and basically because that goes
so fast I have no choice but to just sort of like
be intuitive and let it go
so this is based on one of those
paintings which was yeah I was just
painting and then I thought I'll
put some purple in there and I'll make
this yeah I'll do some Queensland's lace and I'll
put some blue asters and things
like that and there's some salvia and and yeah at
that point is I think that
purple will go real nice with this
purple or this blue so it becomes a bit
about orchestrating but yeah it's I think it's a
bit of both like like I do
kind like when they come onto a canvas I know what
they're gonna be because I've
thought about it before but when they're in that
first study stage no it's a bit
more like I will play and see what kind of
instinctually comes out that's
amazing that's so fascinating yeah
it reminds me how I'm not even though
there's a guitar behind me I'm not
a musician but it reminds me of how
musicians talk about you know they've got their
especially jazz musicians you
know they've got they start off with something
structure and then it kind of
yeah yeah it turns into something else yeah like
it's like something influences
it's like you're responding to you'll do something
and then you've got to respond
to it and one part will inform the
next part and it just sort of builds from
there that's how yeah it's probably
quite like Jazz. yeah and are you is it
is it oil paint you use is that where you the
medium that you use or acrylic
no I'm using acrylic because again it's speed
factor time I've got my little
one around I'd love to get back into oils like I
used to paint with oils when
I was at university and um so one day
it's it's my dream when I finally get
this the shed studio properly skidded out so that I
can do it safely and have
things dry and away yeah yeah of course then yeah
do you do you yeah do you ever
have to push yourself to paint or is it the
opposite like you just want to paint
all the time how does that work with your drive I
want to paint all the time
I want to paint all the time and life gets in my
way that's that that's how I'd put it
but the cool thing about being a mom is I have
learned to be less indulgent on
one thing you know like like I'm with my work like
because I put my first point
of energy goes into him and then
everything else is from that so I've got
that's what the speed paintings are about yeah get
faster and looser and yeah
just see where it takes me take off
folks folks who have watched listen to
the podcast know that I'm terrible at sticking
exactly to the time but the time
has stopped but I've got one more kind of question
that I want to ask you it's
not a specific question actually it's it's more
about do you have a color
that you kind of tend to avoid you know like I used
to work with a guy on a show
and he just despised magenta and he'd start to see
magenta where there wasn't
magenta you know is there a color like that or the
opposite one that you always
just gravitate to?
Well that's that is
interesting I don't do it consciously
but I have noticed from my paints that the colors
that I use least of is red
red red or yellow and it might be that because I
use magenta instead of red
that I do if I need a red I will use
that of course but I can also I guess
mix something similar to a red with magenta and
yellow so it might be that
it's red and yellow those interesting probably
least used I think I'm more
drawn to the magenta blue green cyan side of the
spectrum I would say at this
point yeah what what but I don't hate any color
speaking of red what what did
you think of the latest reveal for the King Charles
portrait painting ah that's
an interesting one um I feel like the artist knew
the response it would have I
do feel that I feel like any artist
who's using pinks and reds in such a
bodily sense it looks very internal
inside body fluids I think that they
knew the - how that would
be provocative I think it yeah it's an
interesting one I don't I yeah it's it to me I mean
because when I it looks it
looks war it look it looks like war to me but that's
just because I view those
colors and associate them with horror like if I was
gonna make a horror movie
it probably have a lot of those colors in it yeah I
do yeah and I feel like an
artist would know that I wonder I wonder I wonder
if the artist to I wonder if
they have to if they have to say look this is the
style or this is where I'm
going to with this painting or or if
they're just left alone to do their
thing yeah I wonder that too I mean
there's been some I can't remember
there was some Queen back in the day yeah yeah yeah
when I say day I mean last century
yeah and I believe that they weren't happy with
portrait of done of her and
they didn't even pay the artist so I don't know I
may maybe maybe the artist
was like oh I'll take a punt I'll make
it look kind of out there and I'll at
least it's certainly got talked
about maybe now speaking of names being
remembered hopefully folks are gonna check out your
work because I've totally
totally loved talking to you and I knew I would I
knew I would I could tell I
could tell by that first video I watched I went oh
you sound so interesting in
the way that you you get enthusiastic about things
and you just don't stop I
love it I love it so thank you so much for for
jumping on the podcast with me I
really really appreciate it.
thank you Vincent
It's been lovely talking to you too. Thank You.
Anna, thank you so much you're amazing
that was a really good
conversation and and I love
your paintings they are so beautiful thank you to
my executive producer MixingLight.com
There's a high chance that you're
watching this or listening to
this via their website so you
probably already know what they do but if you
don't check them out they can help you all things
color and thank you to you
the listener thanks for you keep
chiming in and you keep leaving really cool
comments and asking some great
questions so so please please keep them
coming it's really really awesome and
yes again you can get t-shirts I know
it's ridiculous but people ask for them I'll put a
link in the show notes for
that as well you can get your very own
color timer t-shirt and impress your friends
Thanks a lot and I'll see you on the next one. Bye.
The color timer a micro podcast experience.