Week 3 of Get Your Paint On

Week 3 of Get Your Paint On was all about color.  The assignment was to choose 4 colors from your environment, re-create those colors in paint and use just those colors in your work.  I immediately thought of a new throw rug that I had just purchased that reminds me of the ocean. 

Since the colors remind me of the ocean I thought I would do an ocean scene with a huge swirly sunshine and a quirky whale.  On Tuesday the whale turned into a whale shark and I thougt it would not be quirky but realistic. When Wednesday rolled around I thought of jellyfish and figured I had better get started painting. When I actually started painting I realized that my swirly sunshine did not match the overall feel of the painting and so the swirly sunshine turned into a moon.

The color mixing process was an eye opener and while I admit I did not get each color dead on (they dry much different then expected) I was still pleased with the results.  My seemingly simple color pallet was Butter Cream, Slate, Light Blue, and Dark Turquoise.  And here are my findings on these colors.

Light Blue:  First I wanted to cover the canvas in Light Blue (yippy I did a canvas this week).  When I started mixing this color I added too much blue and not enough white so I ended up adding a ton of white throughout the mixing process.  After the first mix I held up the paint to my rug and realized there was black in the light blue so I added black next.  After mixing black I did another check and saw a purple tint to the light blue so I added red and more white too. The mixing process for this color took me so long that the paint got really dried out and clumpy.  I was begining to wonder if paint was like bread dough and that I had ruined it by "handling" it too much.  In the end I had some clumps that I had to sand off of the canvas but that gave me practice in sanding. The final mix for the background of Light Blue was:  Titanium White, Primary Blue,Mars Black, and Primary Red.

Butter Cream: Secondly I painted the sunshine (that became a moon) and jellyfish Butter Cream.  I started with white and yellow on this one (thinking of butter and powdered sugar by the way).  From there I added brown and then saw a red undertone in the original color and added a red brown.  The final mix for Butter Cream was:  Titanium White, Primary Yellow, Yellow Ochre, Raw Umber, and Burnt Sienna.

Slate:  When I first saw this color in the rug I really thought it as a blue-black color.  When I started mixing this I realized it was closer to slate and composed of blues, greens, and black with white added to dull the color.  I added two different greens and yellow to get to the final color.  The final mix for Slate was:  Mars Black, Primary Blue, Titanium White, Phthalo Green, Hooker Green, Primary Yellow, Yellow Ochre. 

Dark Turquoise:  My eye originally saw this color on the rug as turquoise but I see now it is much darker then that.  This color came from  taking the above color mix for Slate and adding more green and white.  Maybe it is because it was the last color that I mixed but this one was actually the easiest.





From Inspiration to final Painting

 

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