Tips For Mixing Color

Does Color Mixing Drive You Crazy?

Here's a tip to help out.

Make some color charts

These are just a few of the color charts I've made.

 

I made this one for landscapes.

I took every green and brown I had to make this chart.

If I'm looking for a particular color, like a warm brown,

I can find it on the chart,

and I know you can't see it,

but I have the colors I used marked
 across the top and down the left side.

Then I can tell how I got that color.

This was made from very bright colors.

This is one of the things I always teach new students, whether in my online classes or my art camps.

How to make a color chart.

1.  Use any heavy paper or posterboard 

2.  Put a grid on it with a ruler

3.  Decide what colors you're using.

4.  Across the top fill each square in sequential colors. (light to dark)

5.  Down the left you can do the same colors or different colors.

6.  You fill each block with the combination you would get from taking a color from the top and one from the side and put it in the corresponding box.  

7.  Let's say in the 5th box across the top you have green

and the 3rd box down the left is red.  You find the box it goes in by going down the 5th row until it intersects with the 3rd row.  

8.  Fill up the whole page that way.

I don't have black on my palette.  I mix my darkest colors to make my own black.  But recently I was looking for a green and remembered you can make an interesting green by mixing yellow and black.  So I bought a Mars black and I made a color chart using my warm colors.

Here's a video of that process.

(You may have to turn your sound up pretty far.  

It was very early in the morning and I didn't want to wake up the whole house making this video.)

Something happens in your brain once you make a color chart.  After you've made it, you seldom need to use it.  

As you create colors you begin to remember how you made them.  I have all sorts of color charts, large and small.

I keep them, just in case.  That one for landscapes is invaluable.

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Lots of ways to learn art on this site and please don't forget to check out the FREE blog that's there.  

Tribute to a great photographer

A Tribute to Pixel Bloke

I'm not sure how I find the site Paint My Photo.

I think it was a painting friend, Barb Pask.

But, I joined the site and received an email at the beginning of April about a painting challenge they were having.

One of their contributors, Pixel Bloke, who had posted 59 of his photos to the site,

died last September and evidently the owners of the site didn't know until recently.

They wanted to do a tribute album to Pixel Bloke, AKA David Smith so,

you know how I love challenges,

so I got out my paint brush and started pouring through his photos to decide what to paint.

Now that was a tough decision.

So I painted three of them.

 

This was actually my third painting I did of his,

but it's getting top billing here.

I entered this and the one below in the Mary Ann Gentry Annual Art Show

at the Carroll County Library in Carrollton, KY.

His title of the photo was Bet Ya Can't Eat Three.

The above painting of Nigel the Nuthatch

 is his title of his photo.

I learned lots from doing this painting on painting feathers.

I also used a palette knife to paint the tree.

That is always enlightening.

This one is also in the local art show.

If you go, they are having a people's choice award, where people can vote for their personal favorite and then the library is going to negotiate with the artist to purchase for the library.

I like the idea of having local art in our library.

 

And this was the first painting I did in the challenge.

I loved his reflections in the water and the composition as a whole.

I also learned a lot because I did a video of the progression of this painting,

put it to music and posted it on youtube.

How crazy is that?

Click here to see my very first video!

Thanks for spreading Pixel Blokes work by sharing this post.  

Click here to see the album of many artists who took up the challenge.

You've had your art fix for the day.

     

My First Video Crested Grebe

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Oh My Gosh,

Look What I Did!

I've been taking an online class on marketing with Leslie Saeta

and I learned how to make a video out of still photos and add some music.

I listened to Pandora for several hours (oh my sacrifice)

until I found the music I wanted.

I love this type of music and I hop you enjoy it also.

Click here to see me first video  

It is of the progression of a painting I did of a Crested Grebe.

I got the photo on the Paint My Photo website and will be entering the finalpainting in their contest.

I am so tickled to be able to do this.

Anyone who knows me know I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed when it comes to computers,

But

I Can Be Taught!

    

Here's the finished product.  

But you need to watch the video to see how it progressed.

Thanks for checking this out.

I can't believe I have a you tube channel!