AWW Color and Transparency "Red Rocks" - Mixing Color

COLOR - MIXING

Undoughtebly the most common question an artist in any media gets asked while demonstrating is “what color is that?” I soon realized dwelling on this was to quickly descend into a rabbit hole and that the color itself - the name - was a minor part of the answer. What the observer really wants to know is why is that color so successful.

It’s the relationship to the other colors that causes curiosity. Is the color bright or gray, is it light or dark, warm or cool - even these properties by themselves to not lead to painting knowledge. These properties can be helpful after the fact - when discussing what makes the painting work or fail.I start the demonstration with a watercolor plan. That includes some thoughts towards edges, some thoughts towards the build up of color. Because we work on white paper with transparent pigments we must have a plan to realize the color.

Traditionally, this means building up from light to dark and from warm to cool. Also from thinner paint to thicker paint. No doubt there is a lot to consider and plan as we might watercolor always seems to have its own mind and we either fight for control or we partner with the painting allowing these unexpected things to occur.

One goal of the watercolor plan is to simplify the complexity of the source (photographic or natural) and make the job easier. To this end I want us to think this week about an important idea to the painter.

The Mother color

When we look at any scene and ask the question “What is the major color?” The answer is the mother color. Ironically we now see this mother color everywhere. So identifying this hue solves a lot of challenges in the painting - say it out loud.

This mother color is best thought of as a primary - either yellow, blue, or red. If you say out loud blueish red there is already some confusion.

Today we are painting red rocks for a reason :)

Once you arrive at the mother color let this hue figure into all of your mixtures - this will provide a degree of unity to the painting - the mother controls the energetic children and brings them together for a common purpose.

Now. Some terms that you will hear me use through t the course

Hue

Tone

Chroma

These are properties of any one color

HUE = the Name of the Color

TONE - or VALUE = the light or dark quality of the color

CHROMA = the purity of the colorWHAT WILL YOU NEED THIS WEEK

I will be using a simple palette in most of the exercises. In todays demo I will use

WHAT WILL WE DO THIS WEEK

We will start with some simple color blending exercises for this you can use scrap paper roughly 9 x 12 - have 3 pieces ready

I will do a larger demo on a sheet 12 x 16, And a sprint of a sheet 12 x 16 In the smaller studies we will work with several ways of mixing watercolor

Mixing on the palette

Layering

Mixing on the paper