Base and limits

-
I had a sudden realization the other day. The reason why limited palettes work is because there is harmony. Each color mix contains the two colors in varying proportions so there is always a base of the common color.
Understanding this base becomes more important when using various colors from different tubes. Harmony can still be achieved if you think of a common color as a base. Some artists will tint their entire paper with a light value of a single base color which creates automatic harmony because there is a common underlying layer, but that is not what I mean by base color (though that can be done, and yields pleasing results). What I mean is understanding the base - like a secret color - from the choices you are about to make. For example, if I know I will need a blue, green, and purple for my painting, I could use a pleasing blue, a favorite purple, and a lovely green. But what if they don't have the same base? There won't be harmony. So, start with a pleasing blue, create a purple by mixing any red with that pleasing blue (though the best most vivid purple will be with a red the same temperature as the blue - more on that another time), and a green by mixing a yellow with the same blue as base. The common base is then the same blue, even though the colors are different (and not directly from tubes), and there is harmony.
I was a little sloppy with this drawing, but there is color harmony for sure since it is just two colors. And glorious watermarks.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Connected shadows

-
Image
I have often passed by the Campbell Community Center/Heritage Theater and been struck by the beautiful Spanish Colonial Revival architecture with intricate ornamentation. Finally, I had the opportunity to paint it today with the SCVWS Thursday plein air group. I think I should have used a ruler for this as some of my verticals aren't parallel to the edge of the paper! I do like the purple/blue shadows and how the colored shadows blend into one another around all the bright white areas. As always, for me, greens are troublesome - they often look overworked in my paintings. But, I am pleased with this overall.                       “One Ticket, Please”
Read more

Faith vs. belief, and inspiration

-
Image
In yesterday's Gita session, we discussed the difference between belief and faith. I found myself saying that a belief was hard-edged and inflexible, and faith all-encompassing and flexible and always positive - akin to having a big-picture trust in the cosmos. When I heard myself say "hard-edged," it made me realize how many terms and ideas are so interchangeable between the world of watercolor (art) and spirituality (life). When edges are hard, the eye stops at each edge before it goes to the next "item." It's like stop-and-go traffic. You are making progress but it is not smooth, not a flow. When edges are soft, your eyes travel easily, from one object to the next because the divisions between the objects are blurred, and the values do the talking. It is like life, like consciousness. We are all one - not so hard-edged and separate - yet we don't know it, and bump up against one another because of our hard edges, fixed ideas and notions, prejudices an...
Read more

Design- vs. content-driven

-
Image
I've found that strong design-driven art is more attractive to me than content-driven paintings. Of course, the content or subject is there (unless it is truly non-representational work), but it is realized and recognized a split second after one has responded to the design. For this reason, subjects that lend themselves to being more easily abstracted - interiors, close-ups of anything, still life cropped just so - are more appealing than standard impressionistic distant landscapes where the shapes themselves tell you sky-earth-mountains-lake. A landscape can also be abstracted but I feel there is more effort in hiding or veiling landscape features for the slow reveal to happen. I've been working on this still life, and just starting with a notan helped me understand and crop shapes right away. Pushing some of the lighter shapes to the white of the paper helps with abstraction. Like a chess board where each shape is bordered by a contrasting value shape, or the way we typicall...
Read more