Becks-Laying In Of Color

I'm working on a couple of things right now so I wanted to show you where I am in regards to the English-style dog painting that's been put on the back burner while I concentrate on a colored pencil commission (check back in a couple of weeks) which is taking up my immediate attention. Above is the first layer of paint to be put down which consists of my "best guess" in relation to hue, value, and chroma of the scene that I'm depicting. You can still see some of the underpainting color (yellow ochre) peaking through where I haven't quite figured out how I'm going to proceed. I'm pretty happy with the way it's coming together though, knowing that the dog will be darker and the grasses will provide a compositional element leading you back into the painting. Hopefully this illustrates that most paintings don't come together fully-formed, like some Athena bursting forth from Zeus' forehead, but rather as many re-worked layers building up to the finished result. I hope you'll stay tuned to see how it turns out.

'til next time.

Color Thoughts: Why Representational Painters May Not Make Good Decorators

My day job is as a mild-mannered Department Head for an art supply store in Manhattan. I'm often asked about which colors are good for a basic palette and what I would choose. As a representational painter I don't really think of solid colors, but those which can be mixed to create a myriad of choices. Even on a flat white wall, the color and value will vary depending upon how much light a given area is receiving. Varying the color helps to create depth, movement and interest in your piece. You want to have a warm and cool version of each of the primary; mine being perm. yellow lt., perm. yellow med., cadmium red med. or vermillion, alizarin crimson, ultramarine blue, manganese blue or cobalt blue. I tend to like to mix my greens, but I do have a few that I've found particularly useful, Mir's cinnibar green and Williamsburg makes a great earthy green called Bohemian Green Earth. And I've been using a fair amount of mars violet these days and sometimes dioxazine purple. Aside from these you'll need some earth colors: yellow ochre, raw sienna, burnt sienna, burnt and/or raw umber. For white I tend to stick to the standby, titanium. I hardly ever use black.

The portrait of the cat above is one I did and notice how much color variation there is to the "green" couch. Where the sunlight streaks across it, it's pretty straight yellow, in the shadows there's so much red in there that to see the actual color I used you really wouldn't call it green. But you need to be able to mix all of these colors to create the illusion of a green couch being hit by sunlight. The piece to the right is by Frank Stella and his objective is totally different. He's putting one flat, solid color next to another and seeing how they effect each other.

'til next time.

Becks-underpainting

UNDERPAINTING is used to work out the values in a painting before considering the coloring of the piece. Usually done in values of a single hue (monochromatic) it helps to show the forms in terms of their lights and darks only. It also gives the piece some unity as this color will sit underneath all of the colors that go on top. You don't have to go too crazy deciding which color to use (in this case yellow ochre for the base and a greyish purple for the objects) as it will be covered up, but I usually go with a compliment to the overall color of the piece. Underpainting can also be used for glazing techniques.

Another reason I decided to do an underpainting for this piece is that I noticed some irregularities with the drawing and sometimes it's easier for me to work with the form of an object rather than just the line.