Color Journals: Learning to See Color with Fresh Eyes with Clayton Merrell

Week of April 18, 2026

For anyone interested in color, this workshop will focus our attention on the color environment in and around Rancho La Puerta with the aim of increasing our observational acuity and color perception while examining the emotional, cultural, and personal foundations of our chromatic preferences. Non-experts and artists alike will have success while stretching their understanding of how we see color and how it can be used.  Attend any or all – each session can stand alone. Participants who attend multiple sessions will accumulate pages within a color journal that will be a visual record of their color experiences at Rancho La Puerta.  (The Sunday session is limited to 24 participants, so consider showing up early.)

Hand Binding a Sketchbook
Participants will make an Italian-style hand sewn sketchbook/notebook that we will fill with the color exercises over the course of the week.  (Anyone who doesn’t attend the first session can still participate in any or all of the later sessions!) 90 mins

Color Perception:  New Eyes
We will discuss and observe the ways that our eyes and our minds collaborate to create the perception of color.  We will experiment with color combinations using paper collage to examine the ways that color can change dramatically based on context. 75 mins

Color Preferences:  Learning to Love All Colors
We will discuss our emotional reactions to colors and the reasons for those feelings.  We will practice recontextualizing colors to turn even our most disliked colors into combinations that we can appreciate. 75 mins

Complicated Color:  Looking Closer
We will discuss examples of complicated colors in nature and art.  Then we will experiment with optical mixing to color match the myriad complex color combinations that make up the colors of natural objects, expanding our color perception through extremely close observation of plants, rocks, etc., from the grounds. 75 mins

Natural and Artificial Color:  Making Paint from Local Pigments
We will discuss some of the dualities within color: color can be natural or artificial, intrinsic or extrinsic, true or deceptive, etc.  We will make watercolor paints out of locally found materials and natural pigments, discuss the various visual, physical and tactile qualities of “real” colors versus “fake” colors, and make a visual record of some of the colors found at Rancho La Puerta. 75 mins

 

Clayton Merrell grew up in Pittsburgh, PA, and Puerto Ordaz, Venezuela. He holds an MFA from the Yale School of Art and received a Fulbright Grant for research and creative work in Oaxaca, Mexico in 1996-97.  His work is exhibited widely, with recent exhibitions at: the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum; Penn State University; Concept Gallery, Pittsburgh PA; the A+D Gallery, Chicago; the Westmoreland Museum of Art, and the Strohl Art Center, Chautauqua NY.  His work is in the collections of the American Embassy in Belmopan, Belize, the Smithsonian, the Anderson Museum of Contemporary Art, the U.S. Department of the Interior, and numerous private and corporate collections.  He was the 2005 Artist of the Year at The Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, and in 2016 was named Creator-of-the-Year by the Pittsburgh Technology Council. He has received awards and grants from the Heinz Foundation, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Skowhegan, The Millay Colony, Mass MOCA, Vermont Studio Center, and the Roswell Artist-In-Residence Foundation.  The Pittsburgh International Airport features a 69,000 sq. ft. terrazzo floor based on his design.  He is currently the Dorothy L. Stubnitz Professor of Art at Carnegie Mellon University, where he teaches Color, Painting, Drawing and Concept Studios.