My Dear Friends,

Hope all is well with you and that you’ve learned something about color and how to mix paint to achieve your desired color.

Today I’d like to bring your attention to a couple of items that are sometimes disregarded or just plain unaware that they have anything to do with a satisfactory outcome of a painting.

Now that we have the fundamentals of mixing colors, we should know some of the properties they hold.  Like warm and cool.

Aha! you say, I know that.  Sure there are warm colors like red, yellow, orange, as well as cool colors like the array of blues.

However, simply put the “temperature” of colors plays a big part in your overall scheme.  Paul Cezanne, the famous French impressionist painter, came to that conclusion and demonstrated that in his paintings.

It is said that he would spend a great deal of time studying a particular scene to determine the exact warmth or coolness of a color that would best place that object at the right distance from himself.

In other words, he discovered that the “cool colors” tended to recede in the background.  While the “warm colors” tended to come forward.  This created the illusion of “depth” in his painting.

I said above that some artists are unaware of this phenomenom and therefore don’t utilize it.  Their rationale is that “a tree in the distance is the same color green as the one closest to me and therefore I will paint it the same color green”.  However, had that color been “cooled” down with a daub of a blue, indeed the illusion of depth would put the tree in the distance its rightful place.
Likewise for the objects in the foreground.  A little daub of cadmium red light will not only “soften” the color but also add “warmth” to it as well.

The other item I’d like to touch upon is Composition.
Too many people are just plain unaware of how much this plays in the overall painting.  It’s also known as “Division of Space”.  It’s how we divide our given canvas.
Rule No. 1-- Never...never place the focal point of your painting dead center.  It sets up a static realtionship and draws the reader’s attention to it while disregarding the rest of the elements.
Rule No. 2-- Never put the horizon line smack in the middle of your page.  It divides the page in half and both halves “compete” for priority.
Same goes for a vertical divide.
Rule No. 3.-- Never run a line, such as a roof edge for instance, into a corner of your canvas. It’s just bad.

For the good stuff, there are a few acceptable forms of composition.  Namely, the “L” composition. either left or right side.
The “Horizontal” composition.  Here you will place your horizon line below center.  Example, a beach scene.  If there is a wonderful array of cloud formation, then you would want to have less sand and more sky.  Conversely, if there is something of attention on the beach, you would want to have more sand and less sky.

Okay, that’s it for today.  I think you have enough to whet your appetite to start cranking out some meaningful strokes with your palette knife.

--Adam

Day three

How are we doing do far?

Yesterday you got your feet wet with mixing a little color.  Today we’ll delve a little as to where these mixed colors came from.

Before we begin I’d just like to share with you my adversity about using paints straight from the tube.  It’s true that manufacturers like to show off their ability to impress you with a variety of colors so that you spend less time mixing and more time painting.  Don’t get drawn into buying unnecessary colors that you could do a better job yourself in mixing yourself.

That’s why I use and recommend a limited palette-- two reds, two blues, two yellows, white and black.  Or, you can mix your own black using Prussian Blue and Burnt Umber.  You can also squirt a little Payne’s Gray on your palette as a black substitute.  But note that Payne’s Gray is a very dark BLUE, that looks like black, but it’s not.  Just mix it with a little white and you’ll see.

When I say two of the three primaries, I mean a Cadmium Red Light / Alizarin Red; Yellow Ochre / Yellow light; Cerulean Blue / Prussian Blue.  You can also use Cobalt Blue, too.

If you recall back in grade school someone showed you a Color Wheel.  There are a number of various color wheels on the internet.  Just Google the word and you’ll get a plethora of websites.  Open one up, print it out, if you like, and study it.

I know you remember that blue and yellow make green, and red and yellow make orange, and red and blue make purple.

But what do you get when you mix purple and yellow?  Or, blue and orange?  Or, red and green?  These are opposites on the color wheel.  Hmm.

Actually, they each produce a neutral color. The same color. It’s how they become compatible because they each have something of the other.

Some might think color wheels are just theory and not of any help.  When you start mixing from that limited palette you’ll better understand how color works.

I’m not going to take you by the hand to mix the colors for you.  It is YOU who will acquire the skills of mixing, only by doing it yourself.  I can give you the heads up, but you are the one who will put it into practice.

So, that is the challenge I put before you today.  It’s not difficult, rather fun and exciting as we learn new things.

--Adam