Jane's Art Basics - beginner's color mixing

Mixing colors is fun, meditative, and it can be very satisfying. Many color mixing instructions have you making systematic color charts, with small swatches of each color. They look great, they make you feel like you've accomplished something, and they are useful for reference. 

Shades (dark) and tints (light) of Permanent Green Light

Another way to get to know your colors is to choose one color, and mix it with white and colors that are adjacent to it on the color wheel, or "analogous colors". Also mix it with different versions of the same color. In the following video I start with turquoise out of the tube. I mix it with another turquoise (deeper, darker Pthalo Turquoise), as well as white, green, and a couple of yellows. Try this with any color.

You can try out color combinations in your sketchbook in a non-systematic way. Here is a video in which I put together colors in a kind of 'mood board'.

  

If you are just beginning a painting practice, I recommend getting as many paints as you can afford. Start with at least a few high quality paints, such as Golden, and supplement with more budget-friendly paints. Include, if possible, two different versions of each primary color: red, blue, yellow. Here is a little article on Color and Paint, which you can download for reference. It includes color recommendations.

How Do YOU Study Composition?

 Composition is the one aspect of painting that I am most often asked about, so I am continually evolving my approach to teaching it. There are many ways to explore composition. Cut paper collage is one of my favorites because it is very direct, and it is accessible to any level of technical skill. 

 Join me for a Technique Takeaway on Zoom, Friday, December 17, 5:00 - 6:30 pm Eastern Time.

See details at Winslow Art Center, and sign up here.  

Composition with Cut Paper Collage!

 

COLOR!!! For Cut Paper Collage

 Join me on zoom for a Technique Takeaway, hosted by Winslow Art Center. 

To make strong images in cut paper collage, it's best to start with a HUGE palette of painted papers. This includes all the colors around the color wheel - red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, and everything in between - and a broad range of values - very light, very dark, and everything in between.

I've noticed that when painting papers for collage most of us default to the mid-range values. Lighter values are often omitted. To make light values, start with white, add a tiny bit of color, mix thoroughly, and then paint a sample. Acrylic paint generally dries a bit darker than it is wet, so mix it to look lighter than you want.

Finally, make sure you have a range of neutrals - beige and gray, colors that you would not assign to a spot around the color wheel - in a range of values, and muted colors, again in various values. If this sounds like a lot of work instead of a lot of fun, do something else. I find painting solid colors on paper very soothing and at the same time enlightening.

Friday, December 17th,5 - 6:30 EASTERN Time (2:00 - 3:30 Pacific)

Cut paper collage is a powerful tool for exploring some elements of composition. In Composition with Cut Paper Collage we will first focus on this broad palette.

Composition with Cut Paper Collage

 Join me on zoom for a Technique Takeaway, hosted by Winslow Art Center.

Friday, December 17th,5 - 6:30 EASTERN Time (2:00 - 3:30 Pacific)

Cut paper collage is a powerful tool for exploring some elements of composition. In Composition with Cut Paper Collage I will show you how to use this simple technique to better understand shape, scale, negative space, color, and value.

Find details and sign up here.

The following are examples of student work, all-over layouts, nothing glued down.

Student Work from Calgary

Here is a sampling of student work from my "Series as Process" workshop at Leading Edge Art Workshops in Calgary. What a great city this is! All within easy walking distance of the workshop are loads of excellent restaurants and cafés, a great yoga studio, the Esker Foundation, a terrific book store called Fair's Fair , and lots of parks and paths along the rivers.

The assignment is to work with a combination of neutral colors and bright colors in a grid format. The first is one of my examples, the rest is student work.

My example, 10"x10"

All work is on paper, with dimensions between 8" and 12".  Thanks for visiting!

Sheldon Store Fundraiser and Mixing Greens

As you may know, I am involved in a project to make an old general store into a community center and café in my little town of Rupert, Vermont. We have formed the non-profit Rupert Village Trust to make this project happen, and while we work on our big-picture fundraising plan, we are doing a small fundraiser to help defray our immediate costs through GoFundMe.

Meanwhile, here is a quick video on mixing greens and turquoises. I just love playing with colors and extracting a big huge palette of subtle variations on a couple of analogous colors. Check it out.

Enhancing a Color Area

Here is a short video demo on how I like to make an area of color more interesting and nuanced.  The key is subtlety, very low contrast variations on one color:

If you play the ukulele or would like to learn how to play the ukulele, I am teaching at the Vermont Ukulele Harvest, October 14, and also taking the workshops by other teachers. Check it out!

Another Color Mixing Tutorial

This one is about mixing analogous colors, those that are adjacent on the color wheel. I am using the same pigments that I used in the color wheel demonstration:  Napthol Red Medium and Naples Yellow Hue in this case. A standard color wheel often has twelve colors: three primaries, three secondaries, and six tertiary colors (those in between primary and secondary colors).  This is an arbitrary division of colors that gives us a convenient vocabulary.  There are, of course, infinite variations and gradations.  In this demo I simply mix a greater number of gradations between red and yellow than I do in the color wheel.

You can find my new series of technique videos - The Elements of Visual Language -  here.

Color Mixing Demonstration

I will be releasing a series of videos that demonstrate techniques that I reference in my new book, "Abstract Painting: The Elements of Visual Language".  While shooting the videos, we decided to do a number of short chapters on color mixing that could be available at no cost.  This is the first in the series.  I hope you enjoy it!

It is really fun to explore various groups of primary colors this way. It gives you real insight into the potential of specific pigments.

Beyond The Color Wheel - Online Class

I am offering Beyond The Color Wheel: Advanced Color Studies again in the fall, starting on November 2.  It is a six-week course, pretty intensive, with lessons once per week.  We go well beyond the color wheel and study value, saturation, and color interaction.  If you feel you have the basics and want to take your understanding of color deeper, this course will take you there.

Still planning to offer a course in Black and White, starting early in 2017.  Cheers!

Lisa Pressman Workshop at R&F Paint

I just got back from a workshop with Lisa Pressman at R&F Paints, called "Exploring Visual Language: Conversations on Color".  How cool is THAT?  We were working with pigment sticks, which are very rich oil paint in stick form.  Lisa is awesome, the studio is awesome, and the other students were awesome.  Could not have been a more inspiring workshop. Here are a few pix:

Lisa demonstrating on multiple pieces with multiple materials

One of my 10"x10" panels, still wet, still in progress

Ditto the above

And another one....

one of my studies on paper, 7"x7"

Another study on paper, using neutrals this time

The R&F Pigment Sticks are absolutely LUSCIOUS!

10"x10" panel, study using printmaking techniques - masking and brayering

This is most of the class - a couple people left early.  That's me in the magenta sweatshirt.  Lisa is second from the right.  Richard Frumess, the founder of R&F, is on the far left.  Well, he's the only guy, so I guess that's obvious.

Another study on paper

Ditto the above...

The Wall of Paint: pigment sticks on the left, encaustic paints on the right.

Color Class Is Now Downloadable

Happy New Year!!  

Unlocking the Secrets of Color was the first online workshop I ever offered, back in May, 2011.  As you may know, I am "retiring" my older online workshops and making them downloadable.  In this format, you get all the lessons and access to all the videos, and work on your own, at your own pace.  Now, Unlocking the Secrets of Color is available for you to download.  Click here for details and to purchase.

These are two color study pieces I did to demonstrate using different proportions of two complementary colors. 

In my "regular" online workshops, I create a group blog, and everyone gets individual feedback from me on everything they post.  The group gets the benefit of seeing each others work as well as comments from others.  This year I will be adding some new online workshops, including "Beyond the Color Wheel" (sorry, it's already full, but I plan to offer it again in the fall), and a course on Black and White. 

Hope you have a happy and creative 2016; I'm sure you will!

Playing with Color

I was playing with some colors that are new to me, and discovered some really great hues.  Almost every time I order paint I order a color I am unfamiliar with.  Sometimes it sits unopened in the studio for months, and sometimes I can't wait to try it.  Eventually, I get around to exploring the new colors, and always discover something surprising.

This is the first study I did in the video, using Sennelier's Sepia, Blick Matte Acrylic White, and Golden's Indian Yellow Hue fluid acrylic.

In this one I am primarily investigating Golden's Terre Verte Hue, mixing it with their Nickel Azo Yellow and some white.

This is an earlier version of the Sepia test.  I mixed it with a teeny bit of Quinacridone Gold (from Golden) in those few bits on the right.  Otherwise it's just Sepia with varying amounts of white and gray.

Here are a couple of quick tests I did with some unusual colors (for me) from Golden:  Permanent Maroon, which is relatively transparent, kind of an muted red-purple; and Violet Oxide, which looks to me like an opaque version of the same thing.  I mixed them with white, and then with one other color, as indicated. 

New Online Class (and an update on the Five-Minute Paintings)

First, the Five-Minute Paintings.  I made a little progress on a few of them.  Nice to have so many to work with, I can just play around.  It's just like Big Fat Art.  Here are some before-and-after images of works in progress.  These are all on 19"x25" gessoed paper.

On this one I pretty much just enhanced what was there with artist quality paint and a bit more of the water soluble crayon.

Enhanced a few areas, then covered over some using a brayer with white paint.  No idea what happens next.

I dripped the blue paint (latex) over the orange area, after painting over the orange quite a bit.  A few other things, and I'll keep going.

This one took many turns.  It's probably the most developed of the five-minute paintings, and I'm not sure where it will go next. 

Now, for the new online class (drum roll please..... or ukulele noodling):

Beyond the Color Wheel: Advanced Color Studies

This is for those of you who know basic color theory, color mixing, color vocabulary, but want to take the study of color further, and develop your own personal color "voice".  The class is a little different from the others, in that the lessons are sent every two weeks.  Six lessons in all, but over the course of twelve weeks.  This gives you time to get deeper into each lesson, reflect, and absorb. 

It begins on February 10, and, as usual, enrollment is limited.  Click here to read description and sign up. 

Student Work from Online Classes

I am running two online classes - Extreme Composition, and Unlocking the Secrets of Color - simultaneously now, and notice some pretty awesome work regarding color.  In the color class we've done color grids and color collages.  In Extreme Composition we're doing color fields.  Take a look:

color field

color grid

color field

monochromatic color collage

color grid

color field

color grid

color grid

color field

These are all from students, posted anonymously.  Pleas don't re-post, as they will turn up looking as if they are my work, and I don't take credit for them. 

I've been thinking of offering a more advanced color class online - Advanced Color Studies - in which we go deep into color, beyond basic color theory/practice and color schemes.  Unlocking the Secrets of Color will be available as a downloadable class sometime this fall, so this is the last time I'm offering it in the interactive format.  Any ideas?  Any interest in an advanced class?  I have loads of ideas for it, but would love to hear yours.