Playing with Color - Cools

Hinahina

10 x 7 soft pastels on Art Spectrum Colourfix

Miki Willa

Before I talk about color, let me explain about hinahina. It is a type of Florida hanging moss that is an air plant. In Hawaii, it is often used to increase the beauty of the plumeria trees, especially when they have lost their leaves. Some people think it is Spanish moss, and I don't know how that is different from Florida moss. It is also locally referred to as Pele's Hair. Our neighbor has many bunches of hinahina hanging from her plumeria and I finally decided I wanted to paint it because I really like the look.

Now the color. Hinahina is light gray in color with a hint of green. I decided to exagerate the greens and see what would happen. That made me want to play with purples in the limbs and trunk of the tree. I put in a very cool green for the grass and a cool beige for the building in back. It was all too cool and looked very flat. I warmed up the greens in the grass and then decided to go with a complementary rust for the wall. Overall, I am happy with the color combination, but it isn't quite what I was going for. I really wanted to punch the color up further beyond reality. I thought this would be a good composition to do that. Somehow, my mind just won't go there. This is about as far as I can push it at this point in time. Most of the time I was painting this, my brain kept a running monologue about how it is okay to experiment this time, but tomorrow we are going with local color. Fear not, tomorrow I am going in a totally different direction.

Painting Small Places

Concrete Weeds

7 x 10 soft pastels on Art Spectrum Colourfix

Miki Willa

I had an idea when setting goals for the year that I would like to do a series of small seemingly unimportant places. The first one was the Poppy from a couple of days ago. That was from a small corner of my old garden. This one is based on a photo I took at the bottom of a set of concrete steps a long time ago. I really like the composition, and I decided to use a complementary pallet. In this case, I used my favorite of blue/lavender and yellow/orange. This combination never fails to get my attention in a positive way.

Now that my pastels seem to be settled in their new homes, I thought I would share what I use. I started this pastel journey with a student set I purchased at the local Ben Franklin craft store. It was fine enough to get me hooked. Then my husband shared his Rembrandts. We purchased a small set of Unisons and a small set of Senneliers. Then Tom took a workshop with Terry Ludwig. It was love at first use. His was my first choice for a couple of years. Last summer, Tom and I decided to try new sets after a Pastel Artists of Hawaii meeting where we got to try different brands. As a result, I now use Terry Ludwig's, Great Americans, Unisons, a small number of Girault and Sennelier. We don't have large quantities, but we are having fun with what we have. Now, if I could only learn to like paper other than Art Spectrum. I really like that surface.

Color Theory - Goethe's Triangle

Desert Spring

7 x 11 soft pastels on Art Spectrum Colourfix

Miki Willa

In my ongoing quest to understand more about color, I came across Goethe's Triangle. Rather than place colors on a wheel as did Newton, Goethe placed them in a triangular matrix to better group them for emotional content. Each apex holds a primary - Goethe chose red, blue, and yellow. The secondaries are placed in the grid along with tertiaries that are a mix of the color next to and opposite their place in the grid. I like the understanding he developed for attaching emotion to color, however it is a bit different than designers have been telling us today. For instance, Goethe held that the red, orange, purple, and green colors created serenity. He believed that red evoked intelligence and creativity. Take a look at the page I have linked above and see what you think.

Today's painting is from a very old photo I took in the California poppy fields in the Antelope Valley north of Los Angeles. When I was a child, the fields went on forever. Twenty years ago, when I took the photo, the fields were much diminished in size. We had to drive much farther to find them. I haven't been back for fear they would all be gone. Since one of my goals is to use more reds and oranges in my paintings, I thought I would jump right in.

Color Theory - Analogous Colors

Clapper Bridge - England

7 x 10 soft pastels on Wallis

Miki Willa

Today, I decided to work with seven analogous colors. I started with orange and moved around the color wheel to blue violet. I was able to achieve the "whites" by using a very pale yellow. The greens range from yellow green to blue green. The values on the river don't show up well in the photo, except in the bridge shadow. I did an underpainting using pastels and turpenoid (with the blue label). I thought that since I was working with color, I would also do an underpainting using complementary colors to what I was going to use for the painting. I am still trying to get comfortable with this technique.

This is another reference photo from Wetcanvas! This one is by marie d. I really liked the old bridge made with stone slabs across the top. The photo looks like it was taken on a lightly overcast day. The sky and water were rather dull, but there were distinct shadows. I tried to retain that feeling in the painting.

Color Theory - Split Compliments

English Bridge

11 x 15 soft pastels on Art Spectrum Colourfix

Miki Willa

When I first started taking classes from Helen Iaea, she had me create a small color wheel. To go with the wheel, she gave me many other small circles with areas to cut out. They were each labeled with a different color scheme. I got them out the other day, and decided I would try do do some paintings in the different color schemes. Today's painting is a split compliment scheme using mostly red, yellow, and green. I did throw in the blue for the stream because I liked the way it looked.

I found the reference for this photo at Wetcanvas! in the image gallery. It was posted by impshlady. I normally paint from my own photos, or en pleine air, but I have been feeling a need to paint non-island scenes lately. I am grateful to the artists at WC who have generously shared their photos for the rest of us.

Still Life with Fountains - cool

Still Life with Fountains - cool

9 x 7 soft pastels on Art Spectrum Colourfix

Miki Willa

This was much harder than I thought it would be. I was trying to work with values rather than color, while staying with the cooler colors as I see them. The wood was done with cooler colors than the other one, but they look so warm compared to the rest of the colors. Some of the color pinks show peachy next to cooler purples. This has been a very interesting exercise during which I learned the value of using both cools and warms in a painting. Color temperature can help set a mood if judiciously and thoughtfully placed. I don't think I will be doing this still life again any time soon, but it was a good learning tool.

Still Life Fountains - Warm

Still Life Fountains - Warm

9 x 7 soft pastels on Art Spectrum Colourfix

Miki Willa

I learned many things about myself doing this painting. The most important is that I am more of a cool color person. I think each of the colors I used is yummy as a small part of a mixed temperature piece. I had a hard time resisting the colors in my pallet I think of as cool colors. I did use some in the cast shadows, when I remembered to put them in. There was not a strong light source showing in the reference photo, so I had to select one. I noticed when I looked at the photo that I totally forgot them on the left two pots. I will fix that on the cool color painting. I also want to drive the center piece more into the background. As it is now, my eye is drawn to it as soon as it gets past the green. I decided to leave the green as it was and add some of it into one of the pots. I am not sure it really works, but I still like the green. I also need to work on making the fountains look more like water is coming down the sides from the bubbling top. That will be a real learning experience. I will have to do some research on how that can be done. tomorrow, I am going to work on the cool color painting from the same reference photo. I already know some value adjustments I am going to make so I can develop a clear focal area. I think I will also make the front right pot into a working fountain. I guess tomorrow will tell. What an interesting exercise along the journey.

Warm Still Life

Still Life with Fountains

detail of WIP

Miki Willa

Some days, it is really difficult to get in enough painting time in the morning. I left home at my usual early hour, but the traffic was a bit worse than usual so I got to work later. By the time I got set up to paint, I only had 20 minutes left before our staff Christmas celebration. Fortunately, I did the sketch for one of the paintings yesterday. I should not have taken the time to do the second one before I started painting. When I finally started, I decided to work one element at a time. I don't usually do this, but I am glad this time because I have something to show.

I tried to stick with only warm colors, but sometimes I found I needed something a bit cooler. The lavender I used in a couple of places was the warmest one I found in my pallet. I love the green on the wall. I think this may have been the reason I selected this photo. I does need to be toned down, but it was such fun to paint. I will wait until I have finished the whole painting before I go back to it. I may be able to work a bit of it in somewhere else and see what that does. The other challenge I am finding is creating the rustic look in some of the pieces. I am enjoying working with colors I don't often use. There is a luscious peach in my Great American set I have never used before. It may become one of my new favorites.

Cool or warm colors?

I decided that my next challenge would be color temperature. I hear the terms warm and cool color bandied about in workshops, classes, and in books and blogs. I thought it would be important for me to have a better understanding of what they were in order to further my painting skills. After doing some research, I have discovered that artists and color theorists alike don't agree on what they are, how important knowledge about them is, or whether or not there are hard and fast rules about them.

Do warm colors come forward and cool ones recede? Can a cool yellow be cooler than a warm blue? Does greying a color make it warmer or cooler? I thought I knew some of the answers, but after reading what is out there, I am no longer sure. I am going to try it anyway. This week, I will be painting the same still life in warms colors, as I see them, and cool colors, as I see them. I will also be experimenting with mixing warms and cools for effect in landscapes. I will let you know what I learn along the way.

The photo is of the still life I will do in the warms first, then the cools.