Topical Video Art Lesson “Mixing Color”
There are certain parts of the landscape that are easy to see and mix color for; a clear blue sky, summer green grass. But most colors in a landscape are not that easy to figure out like the color of a tree trunk, the shadow on the side of the mountain. Colors that seem gray are hard to mix. “Color Wheel & Color Charts” explains the key to mixing color is to get away from trying to match the color that you see and try to paint the effect of the light, which would be; look for the value first, then the temperature and last of all look for local color. Of course you to start with a color to get the value and temperature and that’s where the color wheel comes in. The color wheel gives us the 3 primary colors, 3 secondary colors and 6 in-between colors and if I’m using a limited palette of primary colors and pick the one color on the color wheel that is closest to the color I want to mix then I only have 1 or 2 colors left to choose from, this makes the process easier.
For me mixing color is the “art” part of painting. In “Thought Process of Mixing Color” I talk about how color is the emotional response to what we see. Which is why painting outside is so important, color from a photographic reference just isn’t as exciting. So as often as you can practice seeing and mixing color outside so that when you do paint inside you still have the same color sense as being out of doors. Our emotional response to color should be quick, without too much thinking, which can make our paintings look mechanical or stiff, but underneath these fluid, easy looking brush strokes is the framework for good color responses, the process that becomes second nature after enough practice. Visit StarkeStudio.com for more information regarding this Topical Video Art Lesson.