Sunday, September 25, 2011

Working with color


I am frequently asked how I choose colors for a painting. It's possible to do a painting with any three very arbitrary colors. A full set of colors or even the primary colors aren't totally necessary.
Yesterday a friend was visiting the studio and the subject came up, so Sarah chose the three colors to the right and I was challenged to paint with these plus white.
Here is the result. (note: the board did have a burnt sienna ground to begin with)

Warning:
The blue oxide is a color that was on sale for practically nothing at an art store. I did use it on one of our PBS shows we did in the Caribbean as it was a good color for the water down there. I'd use caution with using such colors though. They are full of white and can generally be mixed with colors you already have. Mainly there is a danger with using these odd ball colors because you can quickly loose any harmony in your painting. They simply won't harmonize well with other colors.