Mixing COLOUR accurately
Identify which ways that primary colours LEAN:
Yellows lean to GREEN or ORANGE
Reds lean to ORANGE or VIOLET
Blues lean to VIOLET or GREEN
If you want to make a VIBRANT colour, use the two primary colours that LEAN towards it. Example #1: Vibrant GREEN - mix together Lemon Green and Cerulean Blue
Example #2: Vibrant ORANGE - mix together Cadmium Yellow and Cadmium Red Light
Example #3: Vibrant VIOLET - mix together Alizarin Crimson and Ultramarine Blue
By gradually adding small amounts of the second primary colour, you can see the broad range of possible colours available.
Mixing BLACK requires all three primaries. A muddy yellow (like Yellow Ochre) works best, with a very dark red (Alizarin Crimson) and a very dark blue (Prussian Blue).
Adding white (preferably Zinc White) to this black makes lovely greys.
Session #2:
Review colour mixing
TEXTURE:
Using water to thin vs matt medium - note: water lightens and breaks up the mixture, whereas medium maintains the colour and extends the paint without breaking it down. Really thinned paint should NOT be used on top of thicker paint as it will crack.
Thin paint mixture (must be THIN) using matt medium, paint on your canvas then IMMEDIATELY press plastic wrap into the wet paint. Pull off and observe texture. By altering the colours slightly as you go, the final look will be more effective.
A quiet, textured version of our subject was created, using the plastic wrap method.
Session #3:
Crafting the darks using a variety of tools - small brush, small stick, side of credit card.It was helpful to practice on a seperate chunk of gessoed paper before trying these lines on the actual canvas. Moving into slightly lighter values, the bigger shaper were blocked in.
Session #4:
A variety of mini-demoes were attempted - showing how to shift colour within a form, creating shape using warmer and cooler areas and darks at the edges, and scraping the vertical linear shapes using a credit card. A practice at negative painting (between the fine dark shapes) was introduced.
Mixing colours in "pools" allows the colour to be changed easily.
The class efforts follow:
Session #5:
Working on heavy paper, the surface was wetted with clear water, then soft colours were placed gently on the paper to create the light sections. This wet-into-wet technique is tricky but it delivers the softest shapes and is worth the practice.
Session #6:
Keeping the paint thinned with water at first then getting a little thicker, the colours are gradually deepened, being careful to leave parts of the first colours left untouched.
Session #7:
Getting darker and bolder, the "bones" of the painting were painted in. At times, this involved fairly fine work - trying hard to be neat and tidy and not paint overtop of all the previous layers.
Session #8:
Wrapping it all up - correcting as needed, putting the light through and behind if needed and finishing. Finishing the two paintings, troubleshooting problems and getting to the end.
The following mini-demoes demonstrated negative painting (the white used to create mottled green shapes), making straight lines using masking tape and using a brush with water to soften shapes. All of them require PRACTICE:
Using Titanium White in the sky, it crisply defines the edges of the dark trees. Some grass shapes were defined (including using two pieces of tape for skinny lines), and the final demo image follows:
Cottonwoods
Step by step progression from light to dark using acrylics on paper
in a watercolour style:
