Fun with Watercolors Market Square

A trip to Williamsburg, VA this Christmas, gave me an opportunity to paint on location at the Market Square.  With my travel palette, water, brushes, Dot Spray Bottles I set up a location near the center of the Market Place and found a place to do a watercolor sketch of the location.  The weather was clear and crisp and a good view was there to paint.  The Dot Spray Bottles were used to show how to make texture in the tree leaves by spraying clear water and paint in the bottle when the shine of the watercolor went away.  This is the timing to add water or paint to produce a blossom on the painting which as the unique characteristic of rough texture of the leaves on a tree. I was able to video tape the sketch and capture some of the techniques and brush strokes up close.

I am sharing this video on my Facebook Group - Fun With Watercolors.  I have added a sketch and photo reference in my website to be downloaded and used to paint-along with me.  I encourage the Group to download and share their paintings to provide a dialog of art knowledge and learning experience.

Link to Face Book Group Fun with Watercolors:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/583719755532155/

Link to the video Fun with Watercolors – Market Square:

https://youtu.be/rslEa0z6sjE

Link to the downloadable sketch Market Square Sketch:

www.everettswatercolors.com/FunwithWatercolors.html

A review of Mixing Colors

Mixing Color Basics

The primary hues are red, yellow and blue.  Mix two primaries to get the secondary hues – orange, violet and green.

Organize your palette by the color wheel will help to quickly mix secondaries.

                                   

Complementary hues are hues on opposite sides of the color wheel.  Painted side by side, complementary hues make the strongest color contrast.  Mix them together to make grays.

The three properties of color are value, hue and intensity.  Value is the lightness or darkness. Hue usually means color. Intensity is the brightness or grayness.

Every brush stroke contains all of these properties, but they can be adjusted independently.  As you mix, choose the value first, then chose the hue, and adjust the intensity last.

Temperature changes are used to show the effect of light.  The warm colors are red, orange and yellow.  The cool colors are green, violet and blue.  Yellow is the warmest and blue is the coolest.

When comparing two hues, the color closet to yellow on the color wheel is warmer.  The one closest to blue is cooler.

Everett’s Watercolors

www.everettswatercolors.com

Dot Spray Bottle "Palette in a Bottle"

                                                                 Dot Spray bottle

The new Dot Spray bottle. Used by artists, craftsmen, children, and adults.  A great way to change your art and come up with an interesting way to paint and have fun!

Using watercolor paints in the bottle will extend your colors to a "Palette in a Bottle."TM

 Link to Everett's Art Supplies to purchase.

Palette in a Bottle

Fun with Watercolors Starry Night

Fun with Watercolors 3 pumpkins

Holbein Watercolor Paints and why I use them

Comment from another Artist Instructor on using the same watercolor paints I recommend. Using Fresh Watercolor Pigment In the last 5 watercolor demonstrations that I have done, it has dawned on me that I need to mention to my students about using fresh pigment. When I say fresh pigment I mean having pigment in your palette that is workable and not as hard as a rock. I find many students trying to grab fresh pigment from their palette when all they have on their palette is hard pigment that will only give them enough pigment to make a tinted wash. You may wonder why one needs fresh pigment, well the answer is to be able to control the watercolor pigment in a wet wash. If you have your paper wet and you use a small amount of pigment, that is considered a tint of color. Now if you want to float your pigment and control a soft edge on a wet surface you need to be able to pick up enough fresh pigment to control that soft edge to only bleed out a very controlled distance. You can only do this with the use of a lot of pigment. Too much water and it becomes uncontrollable. The Holbein paint I use has a big advantage over other paints when it comes to drying pigment in your palette. Holbein watercolors do not dry out to a hard clump when left in the palette to dry. Instead, the Holbein watercolors become instantly rejuvenated with just a touch of water and when dry they feel very rubbery to the touch. The reason Holbein instantly rejuvenate is that they don't mix OxGall into their paint. Most of the other paint manufacturers put in OxGall for transparency. I believe if you float your pigment in a wash every color even an opaque will look transparent. So when controlling your edges in a wet watercolor wash, make sure you use fresh pigment or use Holbein watercolor paints because they always stay fresh and become instantly rejuvenated with just a touch of water. Use your watercolor thick in a wet wash! David Becker

Mixing Dark Colors in Watercolors

Mixing Primary Colors to make Burnt Sienna

Put Finishing Touches on a Painting

Art Therapy - Create Mosaic to Reduce Stress

Art Therapy for Stress Management

Project No. 2 Create a Mosaic or torn paper collage.

Material: Collect a variety of scrap paper (card stock, colored paper, wrapping paper, etc.); white glue or glue stick to hold the design in place.

Put on some music.

Have a variety of colored paper, scraps of construction paper, pieces of colored newspaper or newsprint. Use black paper, white paper, or any color as a base.
Option A. Take the scrapes of paper and tear shapes that appeal to you. Set them aside to work on later. Choose light colors against dark.
Option B. Use scissors to cut – gives more mosaic effect. Cut small pieces like small mosaic tiles out of construction paper.

Work 2 ways.
1. Torn construction paper. Leaf shapes fall into a Fall leaf motif. Enjoy the process, of tearing and constructing imagery that you are in control of.
2. Cutting, like mosaic. Play with a background for a pleasing design. Look like a window, a door, or a portal. Stay loose.
Drop the pieces of paper on the base color randomly or arrange. Look for different effects.

When ready , use white glue or glue stick. Place the shapes down. You can work abstractly.
The beauty of stress reduction is that you are making all the decisions. You are in charge of everything.

The end result really reduces stress. I made something that was pleasing to me and I’m feeling more relaxed.

Watercolor Painting - Value Options

Value Study Options. The layers in a landscape (foreground, middle ground, background) can have 6 options for value. With the values of light, medium, and dark shown below which option do you like 1,2,3,4,5, or 6?

Art Therapy - Crayon Resist

A new Topic - Art Therapy

Art can be a wonderful tool in the use of stress reduction. One idea that I enjoy is keeping a daily Journal of my Art. When you are choosing your materials, I suggest a larger pad of watercolor paper, such as 9 x 12 inches because it offers more opportunity to express yourself either in larger form or small form.

Project number 1 Crayon Resist

A technique that I am going to share with you that I find very useful in stress management is called crayon resist. To do the crayon resist you will need wax crayons or oil pastels, a watercolor wash or acrylics mixed with water in a dish and large brushes. Often you can get a big house painting brush at the Dollar Store. You don't need expensive brushes for this technique. None of the stress management techniques that we look at today will require expensive materials. Next step; put on some music.

Fill the space on the paper with some ideas of shapes, color or still life. Use colors that are relaxing. Really bear down using oil pastels and crayons and build up the wax layer you want to get a good heavy coat of wax on the paper.

Using a wash mixture (a tablespoon of acrylic paint or watercolor and some water) paint over the wax colors and imagine the wash mixture as creating an underwater scene.
As you work without talking you will get involved in the paint and you're stress leaves . Work very intuitively, don't stop and judge yourself, let it emerged don't try to be perfect .

Let me know how this goes and I'll be back to show you more examples of Art Therapy.

Part 4 Other Ways of Masking

Part 3 of 4 on Masking - Masking Fluid

Workshop Paintings June 2019

Part 2 of 4 on Masking - Frisket Film

Part 1 Introduction to 4 part Mini Series on Masking

Watercolor Blossoms and Corrections

Questions on using and protecting Watercolor Canvas

Quality Watercolor Paper Why and How

Control of Water in Watercolors

Art drawing of Winter Trees

Art Drawing 

Watercolor Painting

  











Basic Composition 

When it comes down to it, a painting is just a series of shapes and lines of varying tone and color, applied to a blank sheet of paper.  How you arrange those shapes and lines is important, and how spontaneous and free your approach to the the activity is, there must be a satisfying underlying structure. If it isn't, then the vision you are hoping to convey, may be severely compromised.  The art of picture organization  is known as composition. Refer to the previous discussion on Principles of Design to cover Focal Point, Contrast, Balance, Graduation, Variation and Alteration, and Tangents. 

Drawing and Painting Trees

There are a few things in the landscape more fascinating than a winter tree.  Winter seems to bring out a curious combination of vulnerability and strength in trees; they are so bare in their skeletal form and yet have the ability to withstand almost anything and everything that the elements might throw at them.  

Successful sketching is all about observation.  Once I am satisfied with the basic outline, I look at where the light appears to be coming from, and then apply an even shading accordingly. Very often, it is not until you sketch a subject like this that you really begin to understand it; I find I have to draw it.

  

A photograph of the place will help you with information that may be lacking from your sketch

Photo reference of Winter Trees

Sketch of outline and shadows

On location painting of Winter Trees

     

     

Principles of Design - Overview

Principles of Design

"Path of Light"

A work of art can be analyzed by considering a variety of aspects of it individually. These aspects that make up  a painting are often called the elements of art.  The principles of design are what we do to the elements. I designed the chart above to show the elements of art in the center with the principles of design along the edges.

The design principles were used in my watercolor painting, "Path of Light."  Unity is helped by dominance in line (the straight); in value (the darks), in color (the cools), in texture (the roughs), in size (the dark space), and in direction (the horizontal).  Contrast is found in the values of light and dark located at the focal point.. Gradation is shown on the grass at the bottom of the painting.

Information from Wikipedia on Visual design elements and principles. 

"Design elements are the basic units of any visual design which form its structure and convey visual messages. There was a painter and design theorist, Maitland E. Graves (1902-1978), who attempted to gestate the fundamental principles of aesthetic order in visual design,in his book, The Art of Color and Design (1941); he defined the elements of design as line, direction, shape, size, texture, value, and color, concluding that "these elements are the materials from which all designs are built."

Seven Elements of Design

Line – Types of lines are thick or thin, broken or unbroken, soft or hard, curved or straight.  All of them may be in a painting, but only one type should be dominant.

Direction – A well designed painting will have a directional dominance that is horizontal, vertical, or oblique. The dominant direction is determined by the lines, linear shapes, and the angular shapes.

Shape - Anything that has height and width is a shape and may be placed in one of three categories: curved, angular, or rectangular shapes.  Shapes in all three categories may be in a painting, but only one type should be dominant -- that is, some of one type should be larger, appear more often, or both.  
Make all shapes, positive and negative, with two different dimensions, with an oblique thrust and with incidents along the edges (i.e., jigsaw puzzle)..

Size – Shapes are of various sizes in relation to one another: larger, smaller, or the same size. 

Texture – Texture is defined as the surface quality of objects and is detected by touch or sight. Many textures exist in nature, but all are variations of the three with which the painter deals: rough, smooth, and soft. Shapes may have any texture in the interior, but that texture that identifies them must be at the edge. 

Value – Value is the lightness or darkness of colors.   More important for readability.  Mood is set by dominance of one value.

Color -hue, intensity, and value.  Harmonious and complementary colors are the categories of color. 

The Principles of Design are a set of guidelines to be used in planning a painting. Principles applied to the elements of design bring them together 

When all elements are in agreement, a design is considered unified. No individual part is viewed as more important than the whole design. A good balance between unity and variety must be established to avoid a chaotic or a lifeless design.

Dominance is created by contrasting size, positioning, color, style, or shape.The focal point should dominate the design with scale and contrast without sacrificing the unity of the whole.

 Eight Principles of Design

Unity – In the end, any design must be a complete unit, rather than a collection of several. The treatment of the element that appears in one section should be echoed in another part so that all sections are related.

Contrast – Sometimes called conflict, contrast  means "opposite of."  This produces tension between versions of an element, creating interest and excitement. In color, use a complementary color side by side.  In line; straight against curved.  In value; light against dark.  In shape, round versus angular.  And in size, large against small. In direction, horizontal against vertical, and in texture, rough against smooth..

Dominance – If there's one principle of design more important than the rest, it is dominance.  . Dominance resolves conflict and regains unity.  This is done by making one larger than the rest, by repeating it more often than the others, by providing more value contrast around it, by putting the brightest color there, using all or a combination of these techniques.

Alternation and Variation  - These separate principles are easier to understand if we see them both as forms of repetition. Repetition in art is the act of repeating , and we may repeat with variation, or we may repeat with alternation. For example; when painting a forest, I have to repeat the tree shape over and over again. If I repeat it with variation, I might vary the size, shape, color, value and texture. If I repeat it with alternation, I create an alternating pattern of trees with one large tree and three small trees following, then again one large tree with three small following and so on. 

Balance – Asymmetric is informal balance in which a larger shape closer to the center is balanced by a smaller shape further out. When balancing shapes in a painting, it helps to know that a dark shape appears heavier than a light one; so that a small dark shape will balance a larger light shape. 

Harmony – Harmonious elements are simply those elements that are similar.  A straight line and a slightly curved line,  a circle is harmonious with an oval,  a color orange is harmonious with red.  Making elements harmonious is a great help in achieving unity.

Gradation – Gradation is an entertaining quality to the viewer without being too demanding visually. Mainly used with color, value and texture for transition of near and far to indicate distance. 

Complied by Everett of Everett's Watercolors

References

•  Graves, Maitland, E. The art of color and design. 2d ed. New York, N.Y.: McGraw-Hill, 1951.
•  Lidwell, William; Kritina Holden; Jill Butler (2010). Universal Principles of Design (2nd ed.). Beverly, Massachusetts: Rockport Publishers. ISBN 978-1-59253-587-3.
• Whitney, Edgar A.  Complete Guide to WATERCOLOR PAINTING  ed Mineola, N.Y. Dover Pub,  2001
• Couch, Tony Watercolor, You can do it Cincinnati, OH North Light, 1987
• Ranson, Ron Learn watercolor the Edgar Whitney way Cincinnati, OH North Light 1994
• Lovett, John Design and Color link https://www.johnlovett.com/design-overview

How to Paint Clouds

Cloud No. 1  painted in Watercolor

Cloud No. 2  painted in Watercolor

In a landscape painting you will almost always have to paint a sky; and clouds are important as a landscape element.  The time of day and the location of the clouds in the sky are essential planning items in the composition  for the sky. . The "rule of thirds" is a good guideline:  One-third sky and two-thirds clouds or one-third clouds and two-thirds sky. Taking photos and sketching clouds outside is the best way to learn how to paint clouds. You need to find a variety of shapes and sizes.

There are several techniques to painting clouds. 1. Paint wet-on-wet sky colors leaving white paper to form the cloud shapes.  The wet-on-wet technique gives an abstract look for the sky and you never know what it will be until the paint is dry. 2. Paint  the sky, then lift  the sky colors while they are still wet to form the cloud shapes.  Lifting the sky color with a tissue gives more control of where and how large the cloud areas will be.  3. Another method I use often is the wet on dry technique.  Painting the sky colors around cloud shapes and then adding colors to the cloud shape after it is dry..

The two cloud shapes shown above were created by the wet-on-dry technique.

• Draw a cloud shape with a light pencil line. 
• Mix the sky color.  Choices are Cerulean Blue, Cobalt Blue and Ultramarine Blue. Blue is used for a sunny day, Other colors are grey for a cloudy day and yellow, orange, and red for sunrise and sunset. 
• Load a large flat brush and paint the sky colors (varied from light to dark) around the shapes of the cloud.  Vary the edge shapes and values by adding water, blotting and changing the brush stroke using the sides and flat parts of the flat brush. The key here is to vary the edge shapes. 
• After the sky color is dry, mix a variety of cloud shadow colors. Choices are Yellow Ochre, Burnt Sienna, Ultramarine Blue, and Quinacridone Violet.  
• Using a large flat brush, start in the center and apply the lightest color using three different sizes. Change color and apply the darker/grayer colors to the underside of the cloud. Using a horizontal brush stroke on the bottom to give the flat shape. A variety of gray colors are important to shape and give dimension  to the cloud.
• Blend the damp colors with a dry brush moving the brush in different directions i.e., up, down, left, right. 

An interesting article from Outdoor Painter discusses how to paint clouds. The title and link are shown below.

How to Paint Clouds en Plein Air

ttps://www.outdoorpainter.com/how-to-paint-cloud
s-en-plein-air

Hints to Painting Trees

Painted Tree

Pen & Ink

Pencil Drawing

Trees are fascinating subjects to capture.  There is so many varieties of shapes, sizes, and colors.  As a landscape painter I sketch, draw and painting trees in most of my paintings.  Location, seasons, and the time of day are also other variables to painting trees.

I found an interesting article in Outdoor Painter  that has a lot of interesting insights into capturing the look and feel of trees. The title and link is shown below:

Six Keys to Painting Trees with Character and Dimension

https://www.outdoorpainter.com/how-to-paint-trees-plein-air/

Create a Value Plan

Creating a Value Plan is based on what elements are determined to be emphasized.  From the photograph above, I decided to emphasize the mountains and the trees.

Using the 3 values of Dark, Mid-value, and Light,

• I made the middle ground  trees a Dark value. 
• Behind the Dark value of the trees,  the background Mountains is a Light Value.
• The foreground rocks and stream were left as a Mid-value.

I always try to put the Dark value next to the Light value for higher contrast and to help the focal point stand out.

From this Value Plan, the shapes are transferred to watercolor paper and a Color Study was completed using the values as a planning guide to a final painting. The dark values and light values are helping the focal point where most of the white paper is showing along with brighter colors.

Value Plan - Light, Mid-Value, and Dark

Most value plans are done in black, gray, and white. It is important to understand that value is the lightness or darkness of any color.  Color and value occur simultaneously; value is one of the three dimensions of color. Placing the light, dark, and mid-value ranges of colors in your painting is an important concept to learn.

The first step is to organize the shapes of your painting and place them in a pattern.   The value pattern (or Value Plan) organizes the painting according to value and creates order from chaos.  The Value Plan guarantees you won't lose a shape because you painted it over or next to another shape of the same value.

The three (3) value plans shown above are:

• Dark building in front of light background
• Mid-value building in front of light or dark background
• Light building in front of dark background

A value plan starts with a small (5" x 7") sketch and then locate the negative and positive shapes.  Then decide which of the positive shapes are important ( something that tells the story or mood of the painting.) Next darken in those positive or negative shapes and create a connected pattern.

Creating a Value Plan will be covered in the next report .......................

Color - Don't be Afraid of the Dark

Contrast is achieved by adding dark colors next to light colors and using complementary colors next to each other. The biggest problem I witness in a lot of paintings is that there is not enough contrast to pull the eye to the center of interest.

This painting started with the light colors of yellow, red and orange. The complementary colors of green and blue were painted next to the center of interest.

Darker values of those colors are painted near the center of interest to give the subject form and depth.

The background was painted with a medium value of neutral colors so as not to take away anything form the center of interest.

Finally the darkest dark colors are added to make the  light colors pop out of the paper. There is no doubt what  and where the center of interest is located.

Color - Sunset Skies

This painting was taken from a photograph, but the colors were interpreted by many observations of sunlight at sunset.

1. A  simple line sketch to locate the horizon and landscape elements (trees, land, and water) is drawn on the watercolor paper to define the composition.
2. Mixtures of yellow, orange, red, and violet are prepared in the palette.
3. Paint the Sky.  Wet the paper with a clean brush to cover the sky above the horizon.  Paint a gradated wash starting with yellow and adding orange, red, and violet going from a light color to darker color from the horizon to the top of the paper.  Leave a spot of white paper where the brightest sunlight is located. 
4. Paint the Water.  After the sky is dry, Wet the paper with a clean brush to cover the water below the horizon to the bottom of the paper. Repeat the gradated wash of yellow, orange, red, and violet from the horizon to the bottom of the paper. Leave some white paper to indicate the reflection of the sun on the water. 
5. After the water is dry.  Mix a darker value to the same colors used in the sky and water and add the other landscape elements (trees, land, grasses, etc. 

Color - BLUE - Sky, Water, and Mountains

The color Blue is the foundation color for landscapes and seascapes.  My palette contains 5 colors of blue: Cerulean, Cobalt, Ultramarine, Peacock, and Royal.  My color chart is shown below with a dark, medium, and light value mixture of pigment and water.  Blue mixes with all the other colors in the palette to cool down a bright color and mix a variety of beautiful grays.

The landscape above has all the colors of blue used in different areas.

• The sky is a mixture of wet-on-wet Cobalt Blue and Cerulean Blue. Leaving some white paper for the clouds and light red for the sunset color. 
•  The water is a mixture of Cerulean Blue and Peacock Blue.  Leaving some white paper for the waves and red color from the sky.  The colors of the water are reflections of the sky colors. 
• The mountains colors are a dark mixture of Ultramarine Blue and Royal Blue with touches of Hooker's Green, Burnt Sienna, and Red. This makes a variety of dark colors.  Some white paper is left to indicate a reflection off a structure or something.  This gives an interest to the dark colors. 
• The foreground beach and palm tree are painted with Ultramarine Blue, Burnt Sienna and Hooker's Green. 

Blue Color Chart

Color RED - Poinsettia

The red color moves from a hot, permanent red-orange to a magenta with shades of permanent rose and quinacridone violet in between.  What a range of emotions this color includes: excitement, love, and passion to solitude, melancholy and suffering. 

In landscapes reds are used in bright, fiery sunsets as well as twilight and dusk.  Red also represents Christmas and Valentine's Day.

Using a good reference, this flower was painted with a variety of red, orange, and violet colors.  The contrasting color of green is used to make the red brighter and more dynamic. The color RED is very powerful and can take over the mood of a painting.  I use it more for highlights and color variety in a landscape painting.

Color Green and Negative Painting

COLOR -  Painting Green and Negative Shapes

The color green can be more exciting using a variety of hues such as green mixed with yellow, blue and brown.

• With a clean sheet of watercolor paper and a mixture of green, yellow, blue, and brown colors paint a variable background using various mixes of these colors, and don't forget to leave some white paper showing (that will give sparkle to the painting)
• When it is dry, use some of the same colors of the same green and paint negative shapes of leaves, branches, shadows, etc. This process is called negative painting, by painting behind the other shapes to show depth. 
• The illusion of the lighter colors makes it appear to be out in front. The darker colors gives the feeling of being able to see behind the front shapes. 
• The first wash is a light value and using clean colors by not mixing too many colors together.  The green colors are green mixed with yellow, blue, and brown. The gives a variety of color and different value for each green color. 
• Discovering the secret of painting behind is a bit like cutting a hole in a balloon to see what makes it work.  When it is completed, it all looks related and gives you the impression of looking back into the dark spaces behind. 

Painting the COLOR White

Color - Painting White Objects in Sunlight

Starting with a white box.  All colors added must be subtle so as not to take away from the white subject.

• Draw a simple box shape and paint a light blue background to suggest a sunny sky.  Pick the light from the right side so that the colors on that side will be warmer than the rest. 
• Mix a light value of blue for the top of the box.  Use a graded wash from the back to the front, with the front using just water
• Mix a cool red color (red mixed with a small amount of blue) and paint the surface of the ground. 
• The shadow side of the box is 40 % darker than the light side.  Mix a blue gray, at 40% darker value than the front.  The shadow side also receives the reflected light form the floor.   While the shadow color is still wet, lift out the color at the bottom with a dry brush, and add a light value orange color.
• Paint the cast shadow with a darker value of the red color mix. 

The color mixes are shown below:

Color Temperature

         

               Warm Colors                                                                        Cool Colors

It is important to know that there are three "temperatures" of color, warm, cool, and neutral.  The neutral colors cover a very small band and are of little consequence, the warm and cools are a different matter.

My palette is arranged with warm colors on one side and the cool colors on the other.  Black, a neutral color, is obtained by mixing two dark colors - generally a blue and a brown - rather than using Ivory black or Payne's Gray..  This is because, when I paint, I don't think of a particular color, but only of warm and cool. 

My painting plan is to pit warm against cool whenever possible for contrast, and to vary the warms and the cools for variety.   That is, if my cool was a blue with a little green in it in one area, then I'll use the blue with a little violet in it nearby, or even violet.  Similarly, if the warm is yellow in one spot, I'll use a brown, or red or orange near it. The result is a more interesting (contrast) and entertaining (variety) painting. 

Spend a little time experimenting with color combinations and see what you get. There is no magic to any color; they are all cousin's of the original ten and you can identify them with just a little comparison test. If it looks like a green, that's what it is.  Is it a yellow-green, a blue-green, or close to the middle?  Your eyes will tell you all you need to know to match the color with the palette.  

Any color in "nature" is either in your palette or you can mix it form what's there. The warm colors are those we associate  with warmth, the colors of earth and fire:  red, orange, yellow, and brown, and mixtures thereof.  The cool colors are blue and violet and anything with blue in it.  This is easy to understand; we're used to cool blue skies and large bodies of cool blue water. That leaves red-purple and green, which are neutral colors; they are neither warm or cool. The minute we put a little more red in red-purple it becomes warm, or if we mix in blue instead, it becomes cool. A little yellow in green makes it warm, just as blue will make it a cool green. We rarely deal with a dead center red-purple or green; they are usually color biased toward warm or cool 

Mixing Colorful GRAYS

Color mixes from my palette

Early in my painting career I used neutral colors to create gray.  I often used Payne's gray to darken or neutralize the bright colors in my paintings.  My paintings were dull and lacked luminosity. After attending several workshops I discovered that I could create my own more colorful grays by mixing all three primary colors in unequal proportions.  For example, mix a primary yellow with a primary red in equal proportions to obtain an orange.  Then add a small amount of primary blue to gray down the orange.  The resulting gray, however, will be a colorful orangish-gray.

Suddenly my paintings took on a new life, and the only thing I had done was eliminate Payne's Gray from my palette. My paintings were more luminous  and pleasing to the eye because I was mixing "primary grays."

To make colorful grays, there are a few other options you can explore.  You can create grays not only from the primaries, but also from complementary colors.  You can lighten grays by diluting the color with water, or make them saturated for darker areas of a painting by using more of the pigment achieving a "darker black."

There are thousands of combination to come up with a colorful gray.  That is what is so fascinating abut mixing color and getting a different result each time. Some of my color mixes for gray are shown in the photo above.

more on Color to continue ...........

Color Wheel Attributes

The Artist Color Wheel consists of twelve parts:

1. Primary Colors (red, yellow, and blue} placed evenly around the circle.  

2. Secondary Colors (green, orange, and violet) located between the three primary colors 

3. Tertiary Colors are found between each primary and secondary color.  The color between yellow and , orange, for example is yellow-orange. The color found between blue and violet is blue-violet.  

Keeping these three basic kinds of color - the primary, secondary, and tertiary in mind we can define  complimentary, saturated, and compound colors.   

Complimentary are colors found opposite each other on the color wheel.  Red and green are complements, blue and orange are complements, and yellow and violet are complements. 

, 

Saturated colors are all the colors found around the outside of the color wheel. They contain no black, no white, and none of their complementary colors.(or opposite) colors.

Compound colors are colors containing a mixture of the three primary colors.  All the browns, khakis, and earth colors are compound colors.

In order to mix pigments into clean, saturated colors, it is necessary to include a warm and a cool of each of the primary colors in your palette. There is no such thing as a pure primary pigment.  When mixing green, for example, choose a cool blue such as cobalt blue and a cool yellow like lemon yellow to ensure there is no trace of red in the green. Using a warm yellow like yellow-orange or a warm blue such as ultramarine blue would introduce a slight trace of red into the green, resulting in a compound color.

As mentioned above, there are no true primary colors.  Therefore we must know that we are using colors that have a bias toward another color, and we must be able to distinguish which colors they are biased toward. Knowing a color's bias helps prevent artists from ending up with muddy colors when unknowingly mixing two colors that together contain all three primaries. (Red + blue + yellow = brown.)

Watercolors are the hardest paints to keep clean and bright because they often gray when mixed with colors that are incompatible.  The first rule for painting bright watercolors is to use only two or three colors in a mixture. Whenever you add a third color to a mixture, unless it is a tertiary color (those colors closest to the first two colors on the wheel), the mixture will be grayed down or even blackened.

For example, if you mix a red and a yellow, then add a red-orange, your color mixture would remain within three tertiary colors.  The mixture would retain its brightness.  On the other hand, if you added a blue to the same mixture, you would lose the brightness. 

Another rule for keeping your colors vibrant is to make sure that the previous color is completely dry before you glaze with/on another color. 

........to be continued on Color

Learning about Color

We will never be able to learn everything about color, but we can really have a lot fun trying to find the answers.  Every  time we open our palette, we are challenged to study and improve our work.  An open mind, dreaming, reflecting, and studying will bring us a little closer to reaching our goals. However, we cannot ever assume that we have mastered the seemingly endless possibilities of working with color.

Why is it important to to understand color?  When working with watercolor, if you do not completely understand individual color properties, you will never know what a particular watercolor will do on a piece of watercolor paper. That means that you will find it difficult, if not impossible, to comprise and design with color.

Knowledge of the properties of watercolor will help answer the question, "What do I do?"  Is a color grainy?  Is it opaque or transparent?  Is it luminous?  Is it a staining color or one that can be "lifted" easily?  My On-Line watercolor class "Fundamentals in Creating a Watercolor Painting" teaches why colors work together or work against each other. This color theory foundation can be used forever in all future paintings.
Creating your own color wheel from your palette colors is the foundation of understanding what each color will do.

Watercolor History in America

A great article on Watercolor (Must Read)

Watercolor has a fascinating history of American 19th Century Artists such as John Singer Sargent, Thomas Moran, William Trost Richards, John William Hill, and John La Farge as well as modern artists Andrew Wyeth and Milton Avery.

During the second half of the 19th century, watercolor painting developed into a significant force in American art.  By the turn of the century, the popularity of watercolor, as well as its boldness, directness and cheerfulness, led many critics to proclaim watercolor the "American Medium."  Working in a wide range of styles and motifs, amateur and professional artists produced watercolors of technical brilliance and captivating beauty that pushed the boundaries of the medium and positioned watercolor at the leading edge of American art.

The arrival of watercolor as a major genre in American art can be traced to the founding of the American Society of Painters in Water Colors in 1866. Watercolor had long been popular in the United States, but it was largely considered a medium best suited to amateur artists or specialists. such as naturalists and miniature painters.  The Society's first exhibition in 1867 drastically altered this trajectory, and America's leading artists increasingly viewed watercolor as a serious creative and commercial pursuit.

Watercolor continued to attract the attention of the country's most well-known artists through the end of the 19th century. Current museum exhibitions follow the history of watercolor into the 20th century when it became an important medium for artists at he forefront of American modernism and played an important role in the development of abstraction and other modern stylistic developments.

Beyond tracing the historical development of watercolor in the United States modern exhibitions explore the variation in techniques and different approaches taken by forward-thinking American artists.  Today's Watercolor paintings reveal that the American watercolor movement was defined by experimentation as artists continually pursued innovative methods and effects.

Studying watercolor paintings will give a deeper understanding of watercolor's place in the history of American art and an appreciation for the versatility, exuberance and delightfulness of the watercolor medium.

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