Here at The Ugly Art Club, we’re all about shaking off perfectionism and finding joy in the process of making art, no matter how “ugly” it might seem. This month, we’ve taken that philosophy to a whole new level by dedicating ourselves to something truly challenging (and maybe a little bit terrifying): our least favorite colors!
It’s amazing how a color you usually shy away from can spark unexpected creativity when you give it permission to just be. We’ve been exploring a variety of techniques to transform those dreaded hues into something wonderfully weird and uniquely ours.
Here’s a peek at what we’ve been up to:
Wonky Least Favorite Color Faces (with a Recycled Twist!)
Who knew your least favorite shade could have so much character? We’ve been crafting wonky faces using our least favorite colors and, in true Ugly Art Club fashion, incorporating a heap of cardboard. The imperfections are celebrated, and the results are always hilariously charming! Tiff led us through the following tutorial:
Texture, Cardboard, and Our Least Favorite Color: A Match Made in… Art!
Texture is a huge part of what makes “ugly” art so compelling. This month, we’ve been pairing our least favorite colors with texture paste and cardboard. The cardboard provides a fantastic, often uneven, base, while the texture paste adds glorious lumps, bumps, and ridges. When coated in that once-despised color, it transforms into something surprisingly beautiful and incredibly tactile. It’s a fantastic way to explore depth and dimension without worrying about neatness. Kristin’s results :
Gelli Plate Fun: Least Favorite Color with Complementary Combos
The gelli plate is a magical tool for spontaneous art, and it’s perfect for pushing boundaries with color. We’ve been experimenting with gelli plate printing using our least favorite colors alongside their complementary counterparts. This creates unexpected vibrancy and depth that you might not achieve with your usual palette. The interplay of colors, even ones you don’t naturally gravitate towards, can produce stunning, abstract results. It’s all about letting go and seeing what happy accidents emerge! Here are a few of DeeDee’s results :
Grab that dreaded tube and let the color take center stage. Instead of shying away, transform the page with mark making; let the brush drag and skip, creating a stark contrast against the muted background. My favorite activity, doodling, became spontaneous lines, circles, and abstract shapes. The grey became a stage for a testament to how even the most “uninspiring” color can become the foundation for vibrant, expressive mark-making. Guest Artist Amanda Trought worked towards :
Join the Ugly Art Revolution!
We hope these peeks into our “least favorite color” adventures inspire you to grab that tube of paint you always ignore or that thread color that makes you cringe, and just make something. Remember, “ugly art is still art”, and what truly matters is the process, the exploration, and the willingness to experiment without the weight of expectation.