In my last post, I talked about a new painting on my easel. One of the things I want to work on is color mixing. The impetus came from researching Jeremy Lipking's process. I had noticed that his colors were beautifully muted without going into mud. That's not an easy thing to do. Several people who have taken workshops with him have made blog posts about his processes. As it turns out, his palette is pretty basic with almost no unusual colors. One notable difference is that he does not use earth colors (the umbers, siennas, and yellow ochre) because, he says, they go to mud very quickly. That being said, he apparently does use burnt Sienna on occasion, plus a couple of reds that could be considered earth tones, depending on how they're prepared by the paint maker.
So with this painting, I thought I'd use a very limited palette and use them to mix a range of grays and muted colors. Today, in the studio, I put that plan into action. I put some ultramarine blue, cadmium yellow medium, cadmium red light, and Flemish white (a lead white) on the palette. Then I mixed up a range of cool and warm grays, then some cooler and warmer skin tones. Here's how the process looked:
There were more sheets, but you get the idea. I'm seeing a nice range of cool and warm grays, nice muted greens, and some good skin tones. Some of the mixtures gave a dark brown and I was even able to come up with one that was close to burnt Sienna. No blacks, though. Ultramarine blue and cad red will give a very dark muted purple, but as soon as you add a bit of yellow to the mixture, it gets lighter.
The next step was to apply some of these colors to the new painting. I started on the face, since that's the focus, and laid in what will probably be the first of several layers. Here's a detail of how it looks right now:
This is a fun challenge. I'm excited to see what happens with it next. I'll let you in on a secret: I have no idea how it'll turn out!
So with this painting, I thought I'd use a very limited palette and use them to mix a range of grays and muted colors. Today, in the studio, I put that plan into action. I put some ultramarine blue, cadmium yellow medium, cadmium red light, and Flemish white (a lead white) on the palette. Then I mixed up a range of cool and warm grays, then some cooler and warmer skin tones. Here's how the process looked:
There were more sheets, but you get the idea. I'm seeing a nice range of cool and warm grays, nice muted greens, and some good skin tones. Some of the mixtures gave a dark brown and I was even able to come up with one that was close to burnt Sienna. No blacks, though. Ultramarine blue and cad red will give a very dark muted purple, but as soon as you add a bit of yellow to the mixture, it gets lighter.
The next step was to apply some of these colors to the new painting. I started on the face, since that's the focus, and laid in what will probably be the first of several layers. Here's a detail of how it looks right now:
This is a fun challenge. I'm excited to see what happens with it next. I'll let you in on a secret: I have no idea how it'll turn out!
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