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What colours would you use?
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Posted
A while ago, I made a big colour swatch thingy (like the paint sample leaflets you get in a DIY shop) of all the paints I have in my haphazzard collection, labelled with paint name and brand. Because the sticker on the tube never matches what comes out of the tube. It helped a lot in finding out what I use most and what I use very little of. I suppose it's a speadsheet in paint form 😂Good idea, thanks Helen
Posted
Not laughing at all Norrette ,spreadsheets just don’t seem to tally with colour mixing. To me it’s about exploration and trial and error. Doesn’t cost a lot for a few brush strokes o a piece of paper and it becomes your own. Sorry if we got off on the wrong foot. Robert is always Mr Nice .I didn't have to make one Sylvia, Winsor already have a spreadsheet online! My main thought about money is when I graduate beyond student colours I don't want to waste money on the wrong colours. No doubt I'll get used to the different personalities on here. :-) No problems, Sylvia
Posted
Not laughing at all Norrette ,spreadsheets just don’t seem to tally with colour mixing. To me it’s about exploration and trial and error. Doesn’t cost a lot for a few brush strokes o a piece of paper and it becomes your own. Sorry if we got off on the wrong foot. Robert is always Mr Nice .I didn't have to make one Sylvia, Winsor already have a spreadsheet online! My main thought about money is when I graduate beyond student colours I don't want to waste money on the wrong colours. No doubt I'll get used to the different personalities on here. :-) No problems, Sylvia
Posted
Thanks Robert, that resonates with the short online course I took at CityLit this spring. We covered a few watercolourists and I recall especially the class on Francis Towne and how tone works well if the colours are harmonious. Will make a note of that palette and look at Wilcox's site. City Lit also had a course on colour theory which I dropped out of before it started as I thought it might be 'above my pay grade' :)
When I've the courage I'll put up my Paul Clark step-by-step copies and self critique them. Beauty of course is all in the eye of the beholder (wrt Clark) Do we 'see' blues differently?
Posted
Do we see blues differently - probably yes, up to a point. Not so differently that (provided we have standard eyesight) we can't recognize blue when we see it; but differently to some extent; and certainly, different colour resolutions on computer monitors can be confusing: going to an art gallery and seeing the same painting you previously viewed on a screen can be quite a surprise.
There was an argy-bargy on another arty platform over a US tutor's claim that Pthalo Blue was a "warm" colour - it isn't: it's strong, but "cold", in that it leans away from the red/orange spectrum (heavily away!). But given these terms, warm and cold/cool, have no precisely-defined meaning, it can get to be a very complicated subject.
Broadly speaking, ultramarine is a warm blue - it contains a quantity of red, which is why it's good for mixing purples with a crimson red. Cobalt Blue is normally rather neutral, with a slight leaning to warm; all the other blues I can think of are cold, containing/carrying very little if any red - so they are the blues which will mix with sharp yellows to make the strongest and most vibrant greens.
You don't always WANT strong and vibrant greens, of course, and that's where other colours come in: it's as important to know how to mix dull greens as it is to mix bright ones: no dull, no exciting; no dark, no light.