Color

Swim Practice 9 x 12

Transparent Watercolor

Marie   Color is what painting is all about to me.  Yeah, I know—value is more important, but I love color.  Value may make me notice a painting and look closer, but the color is what gets me excited. That being said, I don’t always find it easy to use.   I love pure, glowing color; however, overuse of color, in my opinion, can make paintings overwhelming and chaotic.  The painting above proved to be particularly challenging because I wanted to include color in the children to achieve their energy and cheerfulness, but not so much that it distracted from the coach, for whom this was painted. In a typical swim practice, some of the children were wearing their team suits, which are black, while others are wearing brightly colored suits.  If I had put all of the children in black, I would have ended up with a calm, fairly subdued painting—definitely not representative of the actual mood of swim practice, but the coach would have popped out better.  That isn’t what I wanted:  this coach loves working with kids and her being surrounded by them is what I liked about my photo.  By including the grays and blacks but strategically placing splashes of color throughout the painting, I attempted to recreate the combination of fun and learning that this coach so adeptly achieves during her practices.

Pineapple Still Life  9 x 12

Julie In this pineapple still life study, color plays an important role to really make the subject matter shine. Red and green are warm complimentary colors that provide excitement and warmth to the painting. The deep orange red background against the yellow and greens in the pineapple give the painting depth and keep the painting fresh. The cool and soft whites, blues and purples in the cloth and the pale purple shadows offer a nice contrast to the strong, warm colors in the pineapple to create a nice composition.

Next week we'll be talking about shape.