Mixing clean colors and keeping your palette organized can be a challenge! Here are some practical tips you can use whether you are painting in the studio or plein air. Don’t swoosh;wipe. Dunking your brush in turp during the painting process not only puts a dirty film on your brush but also affects the viscosity […]
Mix Spring Greens!
Spring is here and that means spring greens! Many landscape painters find spring greens particularly challenging to mix and harmonize. Have a look at this video for some suggestions on how to mix harmonious spring greens! P.S. Our On Demand classes in painting the landscape are a great way to learn more about color mixing, […]
Values are like Vitamins, Color is Dessert
Often I hear teachers, including myself, describe values as the structure, framework or foundation of a painting. And it’s true, they are. But, how excited can we get about that? It sounds more like something we have to do or should do to get to something more exciting or interesting. Sort of like taking your […]
Value, Color and Movement
One of the most powerful compositional tools we have as landscape painters is our ability to move the eye of the viewer around the picture plane and even create the illusion of movement into the picture plane by creating the illusion of depth. Movement is a visual pathway through the painting that the artist creates […]
Mixing Fall Foliage Colors
When mixing fall foliage colors, it’s important to keep value in mind (as always!), best ways to maintain chroma, and overall color harmony. Take a look at this video for tips on mixing autumn colors that sing! P.S. Our online course Drawing and Painting Trees starts September 30th! Join us!
Mixing Blues For Skies
When mixing colors for skies we concern ourselves with the three attributes of color: value, temperature and chroma. As we know from Carlson’s Theory of Angles, the sky will generally be the lightest value in the landscape–a range of values actually, as the value of the sky grades from lightest at the horizon to darkest […]