It's a draw

Carol Marine must have talked with Bert Dodson because they both want you to sketch a lot and both of them start with drawing your hand. She suggested drawing your hand holding something.

She also recommended carrying around a sketch book to draw while waiting for things like oil changes.  Funny I just had to have my oil changed.  This wasn't the first time that I sketched in public but it was really creepy.  Every time I looked up this guy was staring at me and I wasn't even drawing him.  Usually when two strangers glance at each, they take a quick look and turn their heads, but this guy was just staring at me.  Unfortunately our cars were ready at the same time, but I waited to get mine - I was really creeped out.  The sketch below is from the library - a great place to sketch because people tend to return to the same position or they sleep.  Either way it is a good thing. 

Lean to the left, lean to the .....

I love this book.  The more I read it, the more I want to.  After saturation, came the fact that colours have a lean.  For instance Cadmium yellow leans blue while  Cadmium yellow light goes red and so on. I love this hint she gave  - put the colours you use on a piece of paper and which way they lean.  This is so important and just this hint is almost worth the price of the book.
You should know which way your colours go because if you mix them you could get grey unexpectedly.  If this doesn't make sense buy the book.

Paint what you see.  She had a problem with egg yolks because everyone knows they are yellow, but really they are not the  bright yellow out of the tube..  I had a similar problem with candles (cheesy plug for my other blog   5minutesfromcool.blogspot.ca ) and the colours of flames.

She warned about using white because it makes things chalky - that is what my evil teacher Suzy always says- maybe I should listen to her more. She talked about burnt umber - it sounded so good I may go buy a tube.

The next exercise was to do colour charts and maybe one day I will do them but not today.  My inner child is having a tantrum and my outer child says she can`t make me.

She did suggest using paint chips.  The exercise is to mix a colour to match the paint chip.  This isn't the first time I have done this but a good exercise is always worth repeating.

I think I am pretty good at this and if the painting career doesn't work out I can always get a job putting drops of paint on a paint chip. You can`t even tell the beige ones I did - I am that good.

The orange one does show but if you squint it goes away.  Squint really hard.

The colour card is from Farrow & Ball.  I keep their card because the names of the colours amuse me.  I would love to paint a room Wimborne white or cat`s paw but the winner is elephant`s breath. Say no more, say no more.  (from monty python it seemed appropriate).

Red but not really red

Carol said that most beginner painters paint apples with paint right out of the tube.  The red is so bright that it doesn't look right.  I tried very hard and there isn't a single red in this painting that wasn't mixed with something else.

Boy does she make painting apples look easy.

Please join me in my other blog 5 minutes from cool where I post my current paintings.

I knew it

Value does the work but colour is more fun.  First subject is saturation.  The exercise is to mix 2 primaries and then slowly add the other primary to desaturate the colour.  I used cadmium red, cadmium yellow and Ultramarine blue. The first column is an orange (from the red and yellow) and blue is slowly added.  The next is green added by red and the last is purple adding yellow.  The purple didn't really change that much - I guess the yellow is weak in comparison.  The final column is cadmium red desaturated by equal amounts of blue and yellow.

I mixed it with a palette knife and I was quite careful to keep the knife clean which is a habit I should develop.  

Grey or Gray - I never know which one is right and the spell checker isn't helping it accepts both.  I have always argued with teachers that it makes no sense to worry about complements.  For example to get the a red grey you have to  mix red with its complement  - green which is blue and yellow.  So you are mixing all the primaries.  I never understood worrying about the complement just mix all the primaries and you add more of any colour to get it to lean to the colour you want.  If you want a bluer grey just add more blue.  Carol agrees with me.  She just mixes red, blue yellow and sometimes white to get a grey. 

I told you so.

How fast can you paint if you had to

This exercise was to arrange a still life and paint it in 20 minutes 10 minutes and then 5 minutes.
Can you guess which one is which?

They are in the order painted - 20 10 then 5 minutes.

Five minutes was a a fight but the others were enjoyable.

White on White

I have figured out my problem or at least one of them.  I usually work on Carol's book after I've done everything else and usually at the end of the day.  I am now changing it to a priority and going to work on  it first thing in the morning - after the dog, breakfast, a load of laundry and a couple of bills.

Still working on values - this time a light painting with secondary midtone and a smidgen of black.

I don't think we will eat the egg that has been sitting under a lamp - the dog is about to get lucky.  

 

Black on Black

I figured it out.  I mean I figured out how to get the dark values.  First cover your canvas with black paint.  I think it would have been better to let the paint dry but who has patience.  Put the subject in a box and then turn of the lights and paint in the dark.  Works for me.  The majority of the painting is black the midtones is secondary and the white is just a smidgen.

Just like the books says.  Tomorrow I will try to have a white painting - at least I don't have to paint in the dark.