Your personal color profile

Another one of my passions is decorating my home. Choosing new colors to paint rooms is a delight and I absolutely love to try out new color combinations by switching out pillows, changing lamp shades, new drapes, bed linens,... you get the picture. Sometimes you can walk into a home and get the feel you are back a couple of decades say the orange and avocado era or the country blue and pink era. Color absolutely can date a house, clothes, makeup, automobiles, well, just about everything. Yesterday I noticed my neighbor had changed out a harvest gold toilet. I bet that bathroom looks different today. I wonder what color they put in. Bet they went white.

Thumbing through one of my decorating books I found a personal color profile test. I took it and found that I really like warm colors best. Maybe color profiling doesn’t have anything to do with painting and maybe it has everything to do with painting. You decide. I just thought it was an interesting test. Then I went and took a look at some of my latest paintings to see if they fell into any one category. Of course painting from life you first go with the local color, the color everything actually is, but if you are like me, I don’t choose to paint some things I see in nature the exact color they are, but rather go with punching up the color or playing down the color to get the harmony I want. At least that’s what I’m always striving for. I don’t think my painting has everything to do with my personal preference, but I do see that my mood certainly influences my colors. I think I’m in an ultramarine blue mood. Not sure what that says about me.



Color Characteristics: (from Better Homes and Gardens color schemes made easy)

Warm colors: Active colors move forward, communicate vigor, cheer you, excite passions, stimulate appetite, promote conversation, and evoke emotions.

Cool colors: Passive colors recede into the background, cool you down, calm your nerves, lift your spirits, promote introspection, and generally are soothing.

Neutral colors: Open-minded colors are easy on the eyes, symbolize a down-to-earth attitude, make you feel safe and secure, and work well with other colors.

Bottom line, there is a place for every color in the rainbow. L. Diane Johnson has an interesting article on painting a landscape for a client. While I don’t believe that everyone should buy or have paintings painted to fit a certain spot, Diane’s approach certainly assures a quality of success that I think we all can learn from, not just with color but understanding your clients needs and being willing to go the extra mile.

http://www.ldianejohnson.com/articles/commission_demo1/

Painting with construction paper

I hope some of you have been able to take advantage of the cooler mornings we’ve had lately in Georgia to get out and paint. I’ve had so much going on at my house the last couple of days I haven’t had a chance to pick up a brush or study. Today I will begin teaching at the Thomaston Upson Arts Council gallery a series of lessons I am calling “A Walk with Monet”. I’ve done this a couple of times before and I always enjoy seeing the children (and adults) get excited about painting and learning about Claude Monet and impressionism. I hope to be able to show you some of the work the children are creating as the work gets completed each Wednesday for the next four weeks.

You might enjoy getting a preview of what we will be doing today to help understand composition, color and a basic understanding of impressionistic painting. The photo below was taken several years ago after I did this same class to a group of ladies living at West Village assisted living facility in Thomaston, Georgia. They were so proud of their completed paintings they hung them down the hall leading to their rooms. Doing classes like these are very rewarding and I’d encourage all of you to take this idea, expand on it, and share it with groups you think might enjoy them. If you do, share your results with the group via email to the Callaway Painters Yahoo Group or send it to me and I’ll post it on the blog for you.

It’s no surprise to me that the students end up teaching and showing me things I never thought of before, so I look forward to each session. Basic instructions are below. All during the two hours we are working I’ll be talking about how this exercise helps us when we actually get down to painting with real paint, a bit about Monet and friends and showing books written about impressionism answering questions and just having fun.

~ take colored construction papers and tear into a variety of shapes and sizes
~view and select an image of a painting you enjoy and want to copy
~paste the shapes and colors on to card stock like the shapes and colors of the painting you have selected as your reference
~sign the work
~frame and take home

Copies of this message are sent to the Callaway Painters email list, so if you are viewing this message from your email and can't see the images you can go to http://callawaypainters.blogspot.com and see this and all past messages in the archives.

Palettes

A couple of years ago I had the opportunity to attend a workshop lead by Robert Gamblin. Robert is a wonderful artist and a great speaker plus he is just a nice man. It was a pleasure to be in his class. Robert is founder of Gamblin oil colors and while he does not sell any of his oils on his web site, he is so passionate about getting artists to understand his way of explaining color that he has built pages and put together DVD's to help us all.

If you are interested in learning more about Gamblin colors and products, visit www.gamblincolors.com Be sure to look at this page where he explains color and where all colors fit in what he calls color space. I think you will enjoy reading other pages too. http://www.gamblincolors.com/navigating.color.space/index.html

Thinking today about palettes reminded me of a recent newsletter I picked up with the word palette spelled incorrectly. If I remember correctly the name of the newsletter was Pallette News. Mine you, I'm not the greatest speller, but this spelling made me smile thinking that whoever typed the newsletter had stuttering fingers or either the newsletter was going to be about the armpit plates making up a suit of armor. A similar thing happened when an art group was forming and wanted to call themselves Palette Pals. At first the spelling of palette was suggested as pallet which is a small blanket used mostly for children sleeping on the floor. We laughed thinking if we named ourselves Pallet Pals some might think we were a group of sleep mates. (It's a southern thing.) Then palet was suggested, and that didn't work, so we resorted to looking the word up in the dictionary. There are other palettes too... like palate for the roof of your mouth and pallet like the pallet goods are stacked on for transport. After that we all decided that we would have to come up with some way to remember how to spell the word for artist palette, but we never did think of anything.


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Basic color theory

Basic Color Theory


Color Wheel - 12 hues of the spectrum:

Warm Hues of the spectrum:
Yellow
Yellow-orange
Orange
Red-orange
Red
Red-violet

Cool Hues of the spectrum:
Violet
Blue-violet
Blue
Blue-green
Green
Yellow-green


Primary Colors: Red, Yellow & Blue

These colors cannot be mixed from any other colors. The triangle they form on the color wheel is called the primary triad.

When two primaries are mixed, secondary colors are formed:

red & yellow = Orange
red & blue = Violet
yellow & blue = Green
Orange, violet and green form the secondary triad.

When a primary color is mixed with a secondary color tertiary colors are made:

yellow & green = Yellow-green
green & blue = Blue-green
blue & violet = Blue-violet
violet & red = Red-violet
red & orange = Red-orange
orange & yellow = Yellow-orange
Complementary colors are colors that lie opposite each other on the color wheel.

The 3 major complementary pairs are: yellow & violet, blue & orange, and red & green.

The intermediate/tertiary colors all have intermediate complements:

red-orange & blue-green
yellow-orange & blue-violet
yellow-green & red-violet


When complementary colors are mixed, they usually produce a neutral gray.

When white is added to a color it becomes a tint.
When a color has been lowered in value by adding its complement or black, it is called a shade of the color.

Monochromatic color - color scheme using one hue plus white, neutral gray or black.

Analogous colors - three to five colors next to each other on the color wheel. They are more harmonious because they have a common primary color present in all of them.

Local Color - the actual color of an object; its middle tone.
The four characteristics of local color are:
hue - the color of the object: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet
value/tone - lightness or darkness
intensity/chroma - brightness or dullness
temperature - warmth or coolness

Split Complementary Color Scheme

Using a split complementary color scheme is another great choice for your painting. With this scheme, instead of choosing the complement of your first color choice, shift to the two colors adjacent to the complement. As an example, take a look at these:


First choice: Yellow (Primary) - it’s complement is violet, but to use a split complement, you jump to the color choice on the side of violet. Make this choice on both the right side and the left side of violet and you get a split complement color scheme. What color is it? Here they are… Yellow, blue violet, red violet.

First choice: Red (Primary) – it’s complement is green, but to use a split complement, you jump to the color choice on either side of green. What color is it? Here they are… Red , yellow-green, blue green.

First choice: Blue (Primary) – it’s complement is orange, but to use a split complement, you jump the color choice on either side of orange. What color is it? Here they are… Blue, red orange, yellow orange.

Many painters have solved the problem of making mud by applying the lessons learned by using the split primary color choices. Making mud is not always a bad thing, but to know how one gets there is a real break thru. In the end, it’s up to the artist to make color choices based on knowledge of the palette of colors normally set down by them. It’s fun to take apart the different color theories and test-drive them using our own colors in our paintings to see what happens.

Callaway painter Durinda Cheek has a watercolor painting of a red door that demonstrates the use of a single primary color (red) and choosing to use different values of yellow greens and blue greens to complete her painting. Durinda is an excellent artist and workshop instructor equally talented and knowledgeable in many mediums but best loves watercolor and oil. You can see more of Durinda’s work at www.durinda.com and keep up with her by visiting her newly created blog http://artisttravels.blogspot.com/



The next time you are setting up your palette, think in terms of the color wheel and see if you can make some choices based on the split primary color choices. If you are like me, you will be confused and confounded by what you learn and will begin to have even more questions about color and what makes them work for or against each other. This is one of the reasons there are so many different color theories for us to explore, learn from, or discard.

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Monochromatic color scheme

Monochromatic means that the entire painting is organized around just one color on the wheel then using different values of that color to complete the painting. When you decide to make use of a monochromatic color scheme, value is of upmost importance and of course is a great exercise to use when you are working on getting the values correct in your paintings.

Value is the relative lightness of darknes of a color. If you don't already have a value chart to help you, go to Sherwin Williams and pick up one of the free paint selection strips that take you from a dark color to a light version of that same color. Cannonball D45-7 to Abalone D45-1 is a good gray scale and is marketed as D45 in their color selection strip charts. Using that to judge the relative lightness and darkenss of a color will help you better define your values and serve as a check point for you.

Callaway painter Barbara Robinson has a good example of a monochromatic color scheme in this painting. Good job Barbara.


11x14 oil, "Storm Coming"

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The value of values

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It's hot,hot,hot outside so I know that many of us are painting inside these days. I've been looking back at some of my books and doing some self critique of my work. As a review for me I found this useful:

The Five Tone Values

The most precious factor of a paintng is getting down the five tone values. If a painting doesn't capture these, it fails to convey dimension and that is what we are after. Some think they can get by with using color or texture to convey dimension but bottom line, it all comes back to value so it's good to understand, practice, and critique your paintings for value changes. Value changes helps tell the story. Always see color in terms of value.

1. The body tone where a form is in line with the light.

2. The body shadow where a form's shape is not in line with the light.

3. A cast shadow where a forum stands in the way of the light.

4. The highlight where a concave or convex plan is in direct line with the light.

5. A reflection where general illumination bounces into shadows.

It's all about the light and to convey light we have to understand how we see value changes as light hits an object. Sure, it's painting 101, but it's a good lesson to review, review, and review for all of us.

Hope you all are having good painting days in or out of the studio. I'd love to see what you are doing. Send it to me and I'll post it for you. phyllisfranklin@hotmail.com