Wednesday, July 16, 2014

LIMITED PALETTE COLOR BLENDING




Northern Lights- Private Collection in Alaska

Left to my own devices I blended colors to create Northern Lights.  It was painted many years ago so one would think that my plethora of workshops and reading would greatly improve my art work.
My most recent workshop was with instructor Laurie Snow Hein. She demonstrated some color mixing magic during her  presentation for her students. With palette knife in hand, she made it look so easy but I have been afraid to tackle the daunting task of reproducing her demonstration. I know that I have learned far more as a teacher than I ever did as a student plus I am an audio visual learner so this is my way of "learning" the blending concepts.
I'm going in.

     Here is the list of colors on her limited palette that Laurie uses to create all of the color variations for her art work: Cad. Yellow or Lemon Yellow, Cad. Orange,Cad. Yellow Med., Cad. Red, Alizarin Red, Thalo Blue, Thalo Green, Utla. Marine Blue, White,  Burnt Sienna & Dioxazine Purple .

    I will be mixing the above colors on a large disposable paper palette using a palette knife, take a photo to prove I did my homework and then give you a summary of what I learned. It is the only way I will absorb what Laurie was trying to teach me.

   
Colors 1-4

Colors 5-8 and Warm Black

Colors 9-10 and Cool Black
     My colors did not quite match hers but I did get a wonderful flesh tone and learned how to make black using the colors on a limited palette. I got over my fear of Thalo Green and Thalo Blue finding them delightful when mixed with other colors. My grays did not come out as well as Laurie's and I simplified the chart when I could not understand some of the extra blends she had on her handout. Wish I had more gained knowledge or insight to report from this time consuming exercise but I don't.

     I am not noted for my patience to do prior preparation for a painting or doing the work to learn how to blend paints so this may have been an exercise in just: "do the homework"!

       

No comments:

Post a Comment