subject: Oil Paint with all the colors [print this page] Oil Paint with all the colors Oil Paint with all the colors
The following steps walk you through this painting:
1. Begin with a wash of color for your drawing, and then add a wash of the local color of each object, the analogous color for the highlight, and the analogous/complementary color for the shaded side. For example, we start with the apple at the stage where it has color all over it and it's sitting on a cloth with a cast shadow. The colors are all blocked in, and it's super bright.
2. Make up the color that you use to apply a thicker coat. We have red for the middle area and red-orange for the highlight. Add a little white to the red-orange just enough to look like a highlight. The wash for the underside of the apple has some red-violet plus some blue. It may look just great as it is! But experiment and make up the same color again red, red-violet with a little blue and then put a touch of black in it. Apply this to the apple. Does it improve the effect, or does it look dull and weird? That's the issue with black. Many artists for many years have said that black shouldn't be used in painting. They say that it kills the intensity of the colors, makes things look dull, and is an easy crutch to making paint darker. Most artists use the complement to make a color darker or a combination of other dark colors mixed with the local color along with the complement. This is a truism that you'll hear, and many people get really intense about this issue. But sometimes you just have to use black to either correctly match a very dark color or to depict a color that isn't brightly lighted. The important thing to remember is that it's your painting, and you can decide for yourself whether using black is effective or not.
3. Continue with this approach for the canister, the lemon, the box, and the cloth. Use the analogous colors first. Adjust them with some white in the highlights and in the complementary color on the shaded side. You may or may not want to add some black in the shadows. Some of the objects present some challenges.
4. Paint the canister or any other white object that you use just like you do in the black and white painting. As an object with no color of its own, it picks up some reflected color from other surfaces. See how the underside of the canister picks up just a bit of the green? You can also see a bit of red reflected from the apple.
5. Paint the darker objects like the dark red apple by using a combination of everything we tell you about in this chapter. The apple's local color is made with alizarin crimson and cadmium red light. The highlights have white, and the shaded side has the local color plus ultramarine blue and viridian. These colors are all transparent; you may have to add a touch of black to make the paint opaque. This will happen whenever you use the transparent colors.
6. Complete the rest of the painting as you do in the projects throughout this chapter. Use all the colors you have and experiment a bit to become familiar with the way they interact. Be sure to cover the entire canvas with paint leave no bare areas of canvas showing. You can repeat any of these studies for more practice, but you're ready to move on to some other subjects.
