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 […]
Summer Nights
Last night as I watched the moonlight play across our garden, I couldn’t help but think of the hot, steamy summer nights of my childhood. The chorus of buzzing insects and the flickering of lightening bugs in the woods took me right back to that time. Perhaps that is why I have always been fascinated […]
Glazing
Glazing is one of several methods of applying oil paint that are called “indirect painting”techniques. The term “indirect” simply means that the painting is built up in layers which are allowed to dry before successive layers are added. Glazing is a technique which consists of applying thin layers of transparent color over either transparent or […]
Mixing Low Chroma Greens
In the recent post Simplify Mixing Greens we saw how using Chromatic Black as a starting point for mixing greens can result in a wide variety of naturalistic greens. In this short video, I use Williamsburg Neutral Greys as a starting point to mix low chroma greens. You can use the premixed Williamsburg or Gamblin […]
Water: Color in Reflections
Painting water is an endlessly challenging subject. In addition to understanding the visual science of how we perceive reflections, as artists we also need to think about how to best depict those perceptions in color! Here are a few helpful color notes to think about when painting reflections: ~the depth of the water (the deeper […]
Painting Water–Edward Seago
Water provides endless possibilities for design in landscape painting. Today I want to show you several paintings by the British landscape painter Edward Seago (1910-1974) as examples of how the reflections themselves can be used to create and establish the composition. The important thing to remember here is that these paintings were designed, not found. […]