Putting in order

Most beginning artists will quickly realize that in

order to work efficiently and effectively, one must

develop a good physical system for one's materials.

Grouping one's colors is an obvious way to work.

Here is a shot of a friend's colored pencils. Paint

tubes can be stored by colors in separate containers

which is what I do. Pastels present a unique challenge

because of their 'dusty' nature. I always have kept

mine in order in the box I have which has something

like 72 colors in it.

The goal is to be able to locate visually what you want

and quickly.

If you have your materials all over the place while working

which I often do, be sure to discipline yourself to put them

all back where they can be easily found for the next time.

Scribbling!

When you first start a painting, especially one that is

rather large (larger than 12 x 16) it is a good idea to

scribble! Get your tones worked out by just scribbling

in an area to start to give you the idea of how it will

look. Use very thin paint to do this. Don't be all

careful about it, just general areas scribbled in in the

tones and slightly stated color for that area.

Note: This painting will not have much strong color

in it, so the scribbled areas are pretty muted.

More on edges

This is a lower area of a recent painting

where arms cross each other. There are

no sharp distinct edges. Sharp edges

draw attention. Here, I am

subduing the edges because this is not

the focal point of the painting. So be

careful where you place hard edges.

Edges

For me there is an almost instinctive choosing of

what edges I make soft and which ones are painted

with a crisp edge, a sharp demarkation.

Here you see the edges of the arm are soft and the

edges of the fabrics are mostly crisp and sharp. Flesh

is soft and so soft edges make sense in order to convey

this quality. The fabric elements seen here, are rather

flat and are one layer over another, so sharpness of each

edge helps convey that.

Often I will paint an edge 'hard' and then I will use a sable

brush to blend it and soften it up almost imperceptibly.

Sable brushes are mainly for such blending and softening

because the bristles are not stiff and will not move the paint

around much ~ just enough to blend things.

Storing my colors so I can find them!

There are a number of reasons why I have so much

paint! Of course I purchased a great deal of it myself.

But then I have also inherited some. A friend was

moving and gave me her supply, a neighbor's mother

passed away and she gave me that supply, a former

student's wife gave me his paint supplies after he

died. So now I have somewhere between 100 and

150 tubes of paint!

In order to find what I am looking for, I first did

a color chart which is posted earlier in this blog.

Then I separated the color families and here are

photographs of how they are stored.

It is important not to have too many different

tubes of color on your palette as it is too confusing.

So when I am going to start a new piece, I select what

I want and can find them easily.

I hope you find this helpful!

Warms and cools in the same color

Each color, as you look around the color wheel,

has a tendency toward warm or cool. Here are

some reds as well as an orange on the left. Cool

reds move toward blue on the wheel. Warm reds

move toward yellow on the wheel. Alizarin crimson

and quinacradone red are cool reds. Cadmium red

light is a warm red. In choosing paint colors for

a painting, look to see if it the colors you choose

are more warm or cool. Sometimes you will need

both. Often you do.