Alex Bernham

What started me on the road to painting with bright colours was my granddaughter. Just before she was born my son and his fiancée wanted something bright and colourful to put on the wall of her bedroom. I’ve been painting and drawing ever since I was old enough to hold a crayon and get it to go where I wanted so they asked me if I could paint them something. When I asked what they had in mind they said “something colourful, something from Disney perhaps? Maybe some Disney princesses?” I said “of course” and started to look at what was available on the internet.

I put together a picture of 6 of the most well-known princesses – Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty etc. and started to select which colours I would use. And when I looked closely, my goodness: Belle’s dress is the most beautiful bright lemon yellow! Cinderella’s is electric blue! There’s a magnificent scarlet, a velvety green and a glorious violet! These were colours I had never used. Ever. Certainly not all together! And to cap it all the background was pink! To capture that vibrancy I chose to use oils, I don’t think any other medium can match their vibrancy and saturation, and I enjoyed every minute of painting the picture. Mixing up these strange colours and seeing what they turned into when combined was a revelation and deeply satisfying.

Before I’d even finished it, I decided that my palette from then on would be bright. I didn’t think painting Disney-inspired pictures was the way to go but I definitely wanted to make something colourful to hang on my own walls. With our interior décor being mainly white walls and light natural wood furniture and fittings, I thought a splash of colour here and there would look really good. I’d actually been thinking that for quite a long time but could never find anything I liked. The closest I got were some prints by Kandinsky. And Klee. And Delaunay. Ah-haa…..

So I decided to paint my own based around what I considered they had been doing. And here we are: my first Bauhaus-inspired creations. Using those crazy colours (especially Cadmium Yellow and Cadmium Orange!) is immensely enjoyable, and I’ve finally got something to hang on my walls. I do hope you like them too.