Today’s Sketchbook Drawing- Greenland House!

This morning, out of the blue, I ran across a ton of photos of houses in Greenland… random, I know :) A common theme I noticed throughout all of the photos was extremely colorful houses and buildings, with vibrant hues and large blocks of color.

At first, I assumed that it was some artist -or town of artists- whose hobby was painting houses fun colors (???) But as I looked into it, I learned that they’re like that for a reason! Besides being beautiful and uplifting to look at, the people of Greenland also have a whole color coding system for their buildings! For example, Yellow meant the building was a Hospital, Red was for churches, schools, and stores, Black was for police stations, Blue was for fishing factories, and so on and so forth.

(These days, residents of Greenland are allowed to paint their houses whatever the heck colors they want :) It could be polka dotted for all they mind!)

Being the easily inspired person I am, I broke out the acrylic paints and began slathering pages and pages full of primary colors and interesting textures. After every single surface in my studio was draped with painted papers, I set to work painting the background elements to the piece into my sketchbook. I used watercolor gouaches and my trusty Prismacolor pencils! Once my completed collage papers had dried, I cut out some abode-like shapes and practiced arranging them into a collage that could pass for someone’s humble home.

After I glued the pieces into place over the mountains and water, I lettered in some words at the bottom and signed and dated it. Overall, I really like the mixed-media, vibrant, rich look to this piece. And on top of that, I learned something about Greenland! I think the United States should adopt this color coding system :)

I’d bet that the colors are so vibrant not only to be distinct and easily identifiable, but also perhaps to bring the residents of Greenland a little bit of light and joy against such a stark, snowy landscape.

Being so far up north, rates of seasonal affective disorder (a disorder with the extremely apt acronym SAD) are probably higher, especially in the months where daylight time can be as short as 4 or 5 hours. That’s an appalling amount of time.

So maybe the bright colors of the buildings can help get a little more dopamine into your day, as well as being a secret code for identifying buildings :) I like this idea because I think it’s similar to what I do with my art!

If you live in the midwest, (especially Indiana!) you can probably spend hours and hours complaining about the winters, and how long and slushy and gray and sucky they are. I’ve done this for SURE… especially when my friends visiting sunnier states send me pictures from the beach. I mean come on now.

But when the winter and early springs just seem to drag on, and on… and on… I find doing art can really lift your spirits! Whenever I create a work that made me happy, I share it so others can -hopefully- be inspired and uplifted right along with me!

Next time the cloudy days and slushy streets start gettin’ to ya, maybe try to create something vibrant to lift your mood. Works for me!

(Or, you know, just look up pictures of pretty houses in Greenland ;))