Colour Lessons from Doug -blog #2

Colour Lesson #4    Doug Swinton sent his class members work to do on the colour wheel while we are not attending his open studio classes. I have looked at and read about the colour wheel but never really worked on physically making paintings limited to a monochromatic, analogous, complimentary triad etc. This lesson was on triadics - 3 colours spaced more or less evenly around the colour wheel. One colour needs to be dominant and the other 2 sub-ordinate keeping the colour within their respective value range. We can use the complement (opposite on the colour wheel) to grey our colours plus black and white. Yup, it was as hard as it sounds. Doug sent us the reference photo in black and white. 

I set the timer for 30 minutes and begun. My chosen palette was burnt sienna, yellow ochre and manganese blue with burnt sienna dominant. I felt a little uneasy painting with the timer going as it hurried me up and I could not focus on the details (this is a colour study after all). I painted on a 8" x 10" canvas board in oil. Doug's comments: "10/10 Cool the background a bit more and it all come together. Use a more pure dark blue." I will try this one the painting is dry. My palette is below.

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I found this second one harder although I thought it would be easier when I started. Again the timer was set for 30 minutes. This time I used Cadmium Yellow, Cadmium Red Light and Ultra Marine Blue. With only 30 minutes, the time flies and I felt the push to paint faster than normal without time for details.  Red was going to be my dominate colour and I put it in everything but it doesn't read red as dominate, not as successful as the first one. I am learning a lot and am grateful for the opportunity, THANKS Doug!! Comments from Doug: "I think you're nixing your compliment in to much. You just need a touch to grey colours down. If you put in too much things start to get muddy." Back to learning.....