BOBBI HEATH PAINTINGS
  • Home
  • Shop
    • Available Paintings
    • Selected Favorites
    • Note Cards
    • How to Buy a Painting
    • Your Own Custom Painting
  • Blog
  • Events
  • Classes
    • Classes Login
    • Values Download
    • Classes and Workshops
    • What's It Like to Study With Bobbi
    • Materials Lists
  • Resources
    • Beginning Painting Tips
    • Managing Multiple Projects
    • Framing
    • Your First Plein Air
    • Notes - Confident Drawing
    • Videos
  • About Bobbi
  • Contact

Do You Gravitate to a Bright or Neutral Color Scheme?

4/23/2023

0 Comments

 
Picture
Picture
Two paintings of snow, both using the same color scheme, of blue, white, and a dark. The painting with four trees uses neutrals and the painting with the fence uses bright colors.

Before my latest painting class, I asked my students to let me know what they were currently having the most trouble with. I was pleased to see that values and mixing colors were low on their lists, because that meant that my lessons on those subjects had hit home. Most of them told me that their biggest problem at the moment was simply deciding what colors to use.

Picture
Picture
The overcast sky in the first painting limits the saturation, while the sunshine in the other painting means the colors are brighter.

Of course, one answer is to literally match the colors that you see before you in the scene, and many painters work hard to do that. But it’s interesting and fun to use nature as a starting point, and make your color choices part of your painting style. One painter who did this very successfully was Alfred (Chip) Chadbourn. He often predominantly used the secondary colors (orange, green, and purple) in his paintings. Google "alfred chardbourn paintings images" to see what I mean.

Picture
Picture
Above, I deliberately was going for bright colors in Ruby, and for neutrals (except for the buckets) in Goose.
Picture
Picture
Once again, the bleak sky in the first painting calls for neutral colors, while the sunshine in the second is asking for bight saturated colors.

As a part of a color scheme, we needed to look into another characteristic of color, which is saturation. Saturation is the brightness of the color, brighter is more saturated, and as the color becomes less saturated we call it a neutral. In most paintings there will be some more saturated and some more neutral colors, depending on the mood and conditions that are being portrayed. For our lesson we created two paintings of the same subject, one where we used very saturated colors, and another where we used neutral colors. I think it was the most popular lesson in the 6 week session.
 
Do you have a preference for bright colors or for neutrals? My students were surprised how much they liked the neutral paintings that they created. I myself, as you will have probably guessed, love bright saturated color.


0 Comments

    Author

    Bobbi - Painter. Sketcher. Teacher. Boat and Dog Lover.

    2009-2019 blogposts are located HERE

    Archives

    March 2025
    July 2024
    May 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    August 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2017
    January 2017

    RSS Feed

  • Home
  • Shop
    • Available Paintings
    • Selected Favorites
    • Note Cards
    • How to Buy a Painting
    • Your Own Custom Painting
  • Blog
  • Events
  • Classes
    • Classes Login
    • Values Download
    • Classes and Workshops
    • What's It Like to Study With Bobbi
    • Materials Lists
  • Resources
    • Beginning Painting Tips
    • Managing Multiple Projects
    • Framing
    • Your First Plein Air
    • Notes - Confident Drawing
    • Videos
  • About Bobbi
  • Contact