There, I said it. In your paintings, you must focus on one dominant color and use it to carry. the message in your painting.
So, let's talk about a few of these points. When painting, it's important to look at aspects of color harmony and temperature, especially with transparent paints. With som many balls in the air the last thing I can lose focus on is my story and that one color that will carry my message and ultimately Harmonize my story through that Dominate Color.
Transparent Colors
Transparent Colors can be challenging when trying to leave them in your darks and then having to merge them into the lights, gradually getting more opaque. This often requires careful consideration and planning on how each color will interact with light and shadow.
Color Temperature
Cool and warm colors are crucial for achieving your message in your painting. Too much cool might make the scene appear unnaturally cold or psychologically negative, while insufficient warmth can lead to an incomplete representation of certain elements like sunlight or fire and it also can affect the psychological effect. Adjusting these temperatures involves knowing how each color behaves under different lighting conditions and making strategic choices about where to apply them.
Harmonizing Colors
When using complementary colors (like yellow and violet), you need to consider how they interact with each other in various parts of the painting, especially shadows and highlights. This might involve finding a balance between cool and warm tones that work together rather than against each other. But, the most important aspect of complementary colors is how the mixtures between yellow and violet will harmonize your painting.
Selective Toning
Selectively toning certain areas to enhance or intensify specific areas of your painting can be extremely harmful because it gives each area and or color to become the dominant color. I may have selectively toned a painting twice in forty years. I choose a color to tone the canvas and accept only that color will look good on that tone.
Balancing Light and Dark
We call this the Halftone which is also called The Quality of Light. When this has been decided another term emerges called Notan. Notan is the total sum of the percentages of light, medium, and dark areas in the piece of art. The approach seems to be about finding the right balance between light areas where warmer tones can dominate without being overshadowed by cooler undertones, and darker areas where cooler colors can still provide depth and contrast. This involves understanding how different colors interact in varying degrees of illumination.
Composition Feedback
You might consider adjusting your painting's composition based on Symmetry for balance, the golden ratio for a pleasing movement, the rule of thirds for more movement, or asymmetrical for the most movement and psychological effect.
I hope this helps. Happy painting!
VIDEO KEY TERMS:
Winsor Newton's orange cooler (a color medium)
Scarlet (a shade of red)
Burnt Sienna (a reddish-brown pigment used as a warm color)
Toning (the process of adding a glaze or wash to a painting to create depth and dimension)
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