Paint like you train

This post is probably mostly for the art/painter nerds out there, like me, 

who want to know anything and everything about art, and how to do it. 

But I hope anyone with a little interest in color will enjoy it too.

 

Since I have been taking several online painting workshops

during this pandemic, my husband asked me the other day,

"So how are you going to put the things you are learning into practice

when you are painting?"

(To tell you the truth, I was wondering the same thing!)

Yer Za Vue, who taught the Exploring Color workshop that just ended yesterday, 

(online at WinslowArtCenter.com)

was asked that question from a workshop attendee, 

a question probably many of us were wondering. 

She said, (paraphrased) 

"you learn all about color theory and the different ways to apply it, then you go out to paint and all of that flies out of your head and you just paint".

I mentioned this to my husband and he said, "Oh it is kind of like the military or fight saying "_ train like you fight, fight like you train _"

So I shortened the saying and replaced "fight" with "paint" and it goes:

"Paint like you train" 

... and voila! . . . the learning

comes out as you paint! (you hope)

One the many takeaways from the class with Za for me was

the idea - Temperature Shift. 

For areas of a painting that you want to keep the color without changing the value (without muddy-ing), you can shift it's temperature by adding a bit of the color next to your chosen color on a color wheel,

to either warm it up or cool it down, depending on 

what your painting needs (or what you want to make up ... i.e. artistic license).

 

Here is my exercise chart with Temperature Shift,

using a blue and a red, along with the b&w to show

the attempt to mix high key, middle key and low key value examples.

It was amazing to do the exercise and try to keep the value as close to the original as possible. And the colors on the palette were gorgeous!

Here now is the little painting I made from a source photo Za shared.

Please note this is much redder in this photo than in real life. 

Please also note the sky - where I attempted to shift the temperature 

from warm near the setting sun, to cooler as you go up.

The other really neat exercise we did was desaturation of color,

also without changing the value.

I used Green and Yellow for these. Yellow is so high in value,

it is very hard to match that, so it doesn't look quite right.

Thanks so much for sticking with this post. Do you already do these

color techniques? Do you use the color wheel? 

Happy painting and be healthy and safe.

🎨