The philosophy of these lessons: Look, Learn, Practice
Chapter 17 of "The
Way To Happiness" deals with Competence. I've found that
too many limit their own progress as an artist with the concept
that they "haven't got the talent." 90% of being
a good professional artist is about looking for yourself,
learning (including good study habits), and practicing what
you have learned to become Competent. If you are interested
in a free copy of "The Way to Happiness", please
email me for one.
Lesson 11
1. Thought
Color Temperature: In addition to hue, value, saturation as
factors in the painting, "color temperature" plays a
part in establishing a mood. A painting can be warm or cool. A
warm painting has more warm or sunny colors in it: orange, yellow,
brown. A cool painting has more cool colors: true blue, purple,
pink, cool grey. Even grays can be cool or warm and you need to
be aware of this when painting your neutrals.
2. Words:
Hue: The particular shade of a color. Red and orange
are hues. Fire engine red and rose are hues.
Value: The relative lightness or darkness of a color.
You are familiar with the grey scale. Notice that if you held
any color up to the grey scale, it would be located somewhere
on that scale, yellows towards the light end, blues and reds
towards the dark end.
Saturation: The degree of intensity of a color, as
measured by its freedom from mixture with white. Notice that
a fully saturated yellow is still fairly light on the value
scale.
Often the problem in painting is how to maintain a color's saturation
while changing its value or how to darken its value without changing
the hue. For instance, when you lighten red or blue for highlights,
you may find that the quality of the color changes. When you try
to darken yellow for shadow areas, you find that, when mixed with
black, it becomes a dirty green. The challenge is overcoming the
limitations of the paint.
3. Practice: "Learning bears fruit when it is applied."
Exercise: Painting in a cool or warm temperature.
Try an exercise in which you limit the color scheme used
in the painting to either a cool or warm feeling. In other
words, mix colors that are only cool or only warm. Even the
neutrals should be cool or warm (i.e., blue grey or brown
grey.) If this seems too extensive a first step, limit to
neutrals only, but use only cool or warm neutrals (warm brownish
greys or cool blueish greys.)

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