I am a non-traditional artist…
Non-traditional in that I have never taken a formal art course. All of the art I do comes intuitively. Yes, I have taken “art classes” — but these are the types of classes that teach art as a healing modality rather than art from a learned technical/skill perspective.
I have taken a class or two on how to draw a face and how to paint a face. Well, to be honest, it’s more like I have signed up for classes on drawing and painting faces. I’m pretty bad at actually doing the lessons unless it’s a live, real-time course… But I have at least watched enough to have a good understanding of proportions and how to draw/paint the human face.
Color theory? Now that’s a whole ‘nother story…
I understand the things I’ve learned about color theory for myself. I have yet to be able to regurgitate it to someone else. Values… Shades… Hues… Primary colors — the “real” ones, not the ones you learned in school… There’s just so much to learn and keep in mind.
I have been keeping my eyes and ears open for a great resource book. I am taking several classes this year and each different teacher explains things a little differently. It doesn’t confuse matters — actually it’s a great help to get different perspectives. But I’d like to have all of the information in one place and not have to hop around online to get answers and/or clearer understanding. If you know of a great color theory book — detailed yet easy explanations with examples, please leave me a note in the comments.
Each one, teach one…
In one of the classes I’m in, the instructor (Charla) teaches the principle of color strings and the importance of creating a color journal for your studio. Like the diligent student I am (Not! lol), I pulled out a new 6×6 art journal with watercolor paper pages and got to work. My aim is to create 5 different values for each color from darkest to lightest (almost white). As you can see by the picture below, I failed miserably with Ultramarine Blue…
But by doing that one color, I learned what I was doing “wrong”: I needed to add a lot more white if I was only aiming for 5 values! I’m finding that the really saturated colors give me the most “trouble.” But I was already well aware of Cadmium Yellow’s characteristics — Charla warned us that yellow would be trickier to get from dark to light in 5 shades so I was ready!
And because I didn’t yet have my sta-wet palette (it arrives today) and I didn’t want to waste the paints I’d mixed up, I sloshed them around on a canvas board I had lying around. It makes a great start for a background!
I actually really like that background… Now I just gotta figure out what else I’m going to do with the canvas board! I will probably use it for my first try at Charla’s painting method. We’ll see how things turn out — I will post the finished painting once I get it done.
What’s your experience/knowledge of color theory? Let me know in the comments below.
I have no knowledge of color theory but your post has me curious now. I love your palettes and the start on the canvas. I hope to hear more about your experience as the class progresses.
Be prepared to go down a rabbit hole Leslie! LOL Deep stuff that color theory… I will most definitely update the blog as the class progresses!
So, not really color theory per se, but I LOVE the book Color: A Natural History of the Palette. It goes through each color and discusses its history…how it was made into dyes, the social connections with each color, etc.
Thanks for the book suggestion! I will look it up and most likely add it to my collection. I have a weakness for buying books lol
Sounds like an amazing class! My son shared a YouTube video with me awhile back that you might find interesting; it’s called “brown doesn’t exist,” or something like that. Color is fascinating.
Oh Em Gee! “Color is fascinating” is an understatement! If I knew then what I know now, I would never have every Golden paint color. Just the primaries and make my own colors for the rest of them…