Learning about colour from Linda Kemp: Hue

Today I followed Ms Kemp as she introduced to me the concept of contrast by hue (or colour).  Basically by this she means following the colour wheel in analogous colours, creating contrast by the hue.  Analogous colours are those that are beside each other on the colour wheel and as such are related.  The nice thing about working with analogous colours is that you can't create mud, or neutrals by accident because all the colours are related.

To create a contrast painting by hue, it's important to remember that colours at the top of the colour wheel are lighter by nature (yellow) than those at the bottom of the colour wheel (red, blue, violet), but also the range of value does not go as far as with a value scale and will tend to stay in the mid-ranges.

Following along with Ms Kemp, I created 2 analogous paintings; one using warm colours (yellow, orange, orange-red,  and red), and one using cool colours (yellow, yellow-green, blue-green, and blue).

Unfortunately the camera washed out the yellow in my warm painting, but I think you still get the idea. Both paintings were done completely wet-in-wet, with LOTS of pure paint loaded on the brush.  The shapes don't really matter here, the idea was to learn the principle.  If you're thinking that the cool painting looks a bit more like a value painting - I have to agree with you.

Here I placed my value finder directly on top of the painting to see just how far the value range went.  From the scale, I think the yellow likely represents a value 9 (very light), and the blue looks to be around value 2 (very dark).  To me this was not a correct representation of a painting with hue contrast which should have a much smaller range of value contrast, so I decided to try again.

The only thing I really changed was the type of blue I used.  I went from cobalt blue (who knew it was that dark?), to phthalo blue which has some white in it.  Please forgive the rectangles in the background - I used a piece of watercolour paper that I had used before, just painted on the back.  I guess it shows through :P

Here are the two paintings right next to each other.  You can see that the one using the phthalo blue has got much less of a value contrast than the one on the bottom with the cobalt blue.

This was a very fun exercise and super quick to boot!  I can't wait to try this out in a painting!!

Snowdrops

So after watching Birgitt’s video on how to do a white flower I thought I’d try it out on some snowdrops, instead of following along with her example.  I did this for a few reasons: first, I find it difficult to do anything when I can’t see where it’s going or what the final result will be.  Second, I have no connection with the image Birgitt chose, so it is difficult for me to render it properly.  Third, having my own image means I can make my own map, with directions on how to get where I want to go.  And fourth, snowdrops are a simple shape, without a lot of bends and folds to follow.

I created an image of snowdrops from pictures I took during a walk with the family near my home.  They were fully in bloom and all the snow had passed.  From this image, I determined a light source and basically gave things a rough shape.  This is my map.  I didn’t worry about composition too much, or accuracy.  The point of this exercise was to paint the flowers using Birgitt’s technique – not get caught up in the details.

I re-watched some of the video for specific pointers.  For Birgitt’s white flowers she uses greens, yellows and blues with some yellow ochre or burnt sienna (I assume for the shadows as she doesn’t really say).  I quickly sketched my image onto the back of one of my other exercise pieces.  This time I think it’s a Fabriano 140lb – not Arches.  Then I prepared my paints and mixed my colours.

Ironically, the nice thing about painting white flowers is you HAVE to use a lot of water to keep the colours light.  I’m pretty good at this part (mixing rich, dark colours on the other hand…).  Then I got to work. I worked each petal individually and layered darker values for the shaded areas of the petals.

Once the flowers were done, it was a question of what to do with the background.  Birgitt says that a dark background will really help white flowers pop.  I figured that using a contrasting colour might also help, so I pulled out my handy-dandy colour wheel.  Since the flowers are mostly greens, blues, and yellows, the contrasting colours would be purples, reds, and oranges.  I did my best to mix up a thick batch onto my palette. Looking back, it might have been a good idea to take a picture of the flowers before I painted the background so you could get an idea of just how dark and colourful the flowers looked against the white paper.  Oh well.  As they say: hindsight is 20:20.

Here you can see my reference sketch relative to the finished painting.  It was drawn on a very small piece of note paper.

As the background was drying I thought that another way to help the flowers pop would be to add a texture to the background, since the petals are very smooth.  While the painting was still a little damp, I splattered pure water here and there for texture.  It had a really cool effect and I think it gives the suggestion of snow.

I am much happier with the way this painting came out than the succulents.  I managed to keep edges rather than lines, and I have soft and hard edges this time.  I didn’t find myself wanting to repeatedly go over everything in an attempt to fix the contrast.  I think this was in part because I had a map to draw from and see where the contrast should be from the beginning. I have to say that I like the picture of the painting more than the actual painting.  In reality the petals have more yellow to them and I’m not super-thrilled with that.

I did learn a few more things as well.  Definitely use larger brushes when possible.  Vary the brush when you need to so that you can keep your lines sharp (mine aren’t so much).  When you are reusing paper (i.e. painting on the back of something else), be sure to notice if the sizing has gone.  If you look closely at the top of the painting and in the far right petal, you will see dark spots in the even, textural pattern of the paper.  These started to come up as soon as I put water to the page and ultra-absorbed the pigments.  I would have been really annoyed if this had been meant as a finished piece and that had happened. 

I still need to work on my brush work.  My lines aren’t as even as I’d like them to be, and you can see a few places where I accidently went over the flowers with the background colour.  I tried to mop it out, but that only works so far before you start to wreck things.  Again, I’m hoping that practice will help with this more than anything.

These exercises have given me a lot to think about with my crocus picture.  I’m not sure if I’m quite ready to tackle that one just yet, but I am ready to start thinking about what I need in a more serious manner.  I’ll spend the next day or so thinking in that direction and we’ll see what comes of it.

Completed succulents

Okay so I learned a lot about painting in this one demonstration.  First, rushing really won't work.  Second, don't put your thumb on a wet part of the painting - it will leave a print.  Third, if you start out too dark, good luck saving the painting.  Now this last one is really ironic because I am normally terrified of putting too much paint and end up with weak and "insipid" colours.  So I'm finding it somewhat amusing to see that you can actually put in too much paint.

Usually in a drawing if you add too much value the best way to correct isn't to remove with an eraser, but to darken the darks more.  You need to create contrast and if you can get the darks far enough, the lights will still pop.  Then you can go over with your kneaded eraser and gently lift some of the sparkle back into the picture.

This doesn't work so well in watercolour painting.  If we're only talking small areas it isn't so bad and you can get away with quite a bit.  But in this demo the shapes are quite large.  I tried darkening the darkest areas - which admittedly got quite dark.  But some of the leaves ended up losing their dimension and texture which I found disappointing.  Also, the background leaves were supposed to be in bright light so shouldn't be so colour intense.

I decided to try to lift some of the colour off the highlighted leaves.  It worked better than I expected, though I did loose texture again.  So another lesson learned - try to get it right the first time!

While I was able to lighten the bright areas, I was also able to correct a few oopsies, like the blossom that was in the top right leaf.  But I think the painting looks more lifeless now, even though there's lots of dimension and intensity.  There's just no realism to it.  There's too many lines and not enough edges.  And there's a blurriness to everything that screams badly done.  All-in-all, I think I preferred it before i lightened it.  Aw well, I'm learning so many lessons I think my head might explode!  I'm going to move on to another video with Birgit next time.  She has a demonstration on how to paint white flowers that will come in handy with my crocus so I think we'll move on to that.