Tip of the Month - September 2001

My palette has a wonderful selection of colors. I call them 'candy'. I want to put them all into every painting. If I did that, there would be no dominant hue & visual confusion would reign as can be seen in illustration #1.

How can I use all those wonderful colors in one painting? I can choose one color family (eg. RED) & allow it to dominate in quality & quanity as is seen in illustration #2.

OR I can mix the dominant color family into all the other colors on my palette. In #3, I have mixed RED into a variety of colors on my palette.

I can make a flat wash of the dominant color & paint the other colors on top of the dry wash as I did in #4.

Sometimes a transparent wash of a single color painted on part of or the whole of a dry painting will create a dominant effect & result in unity.

Try starting your paintings with a light all over wash of a single hue. You may find that it helps you to focus on color dominance.




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