Big Smiles--Exploring Color to be Revised, Updated, Launched in 2016

Yesterday I met with my favorite editor, Stefanie Laufersweiler, about the book we're working on now--our fourth for North Light Books. We are so happy to be bringing this book back after a couple of years out of print. We still have lots of work to do, as this is a major revision and update. I haven't talked much about my book development process in the past (a total of seven books, going on eight), but I've decided to share some of my thoughts and experiences as I pull the book together with Stef's sharp eyes and sense of humor to assist me. Maybe you have dreamed of writing a book and will feel encouraged to give it a shot. Stay tuned!

Color schemes in beadwork

I found a link to Bead Arts by Cindy Lavin that talks about color schemes. She hits the nail on the head. You can use color schemes in any color medium, whether art, crafts, interiors, and even architecture. Cindy had always used the common basic triads, but decided to try something different based on my book, Exploring Color. She got exciting results when she tried something new. Check it out.

Book Review: PowerColor

Caroline Jasper's PowerColor: Master Color Concepts in All Media. provides an interesting overview of color concepts not found in many books on color. Personally, I enjoy reading the scientific and historical information. When I wrote my first Exploring Color book (1985) such material was hard to find and took diligent research and a lot of winnowing to cut the information down to size for the first two chapters of my book. When I revised Exploring Color: How to Use and Control Color in Your Painting (1998), I was asked to compress it into fewer pages and had to give up most of that material in order to concentrate on the practical tasks of learning about paint characteristics and using them in artwork. I'm glad to see a fresh book that includes summaries of this interesting background information. I don't agree with her on color wheels and find their use inconsistent in the book, but it's theory, and she's entitled to her opinion. Jasper features several artists in their studios with step-by-step demos of their work. The book includes a broad spectrum (pun intended, sorry) of styles and is lavishly illustrated in color.

Exploring Color talk

Last night I had a good time speaking at the Fairborn Art Association. This is one of the friendliest groups I know. I've been a member for many years--maybe twenty or longer. I don't get to the meetings often. When I first joined I was on the board of a local group that met on the same night. Nevertheless, they always greet me as a friend and neighbor and I love that.

I knew the crowd would be small,just by looking at the weather map. There were storm warnings, tornado watches, and big black clouds in my rear-view mirror as I drove to Fairborn; and as I drove toward town, a humongous horizontal flash of lighting raced from one end of the sky to the other just in front of me. By the time I got there, the wind had kicked up and it was raining hard. My umbrella turned inside out as I walked from my car to the gallery.

About thirty people braved the storm. They were very responsive. I talked about the three color systems in my book, Exploring Color. First I showed them the split-primary color-mixing method. Then I moved to using compatible colors and finally, to the subject of color schemes, which is covered in my book but not yet on my website. This was a lot of material to work into a little over an hour, but in talks like this my objective is to give an overview of the options artists have when they tap into a system instead of using random selection or frustrating trial-and-error over a period of years. You can find a system that works best for you or even move from one to another as the mood strikes you. In either case you'll get consistently better results with your color. And, needless to say, once you understand how these color systems work, you can break the rules to please yourself and still have beautiful color.

The pigment color wheel is finished

Finally I've finished the watercolor wheel I started for my class several weeks ago. I did blue first, then added red the following week and yellow a week later. (Click on the "color wheel" label below to see the three work sheets and watercolor wheels that I painted last month.) Today I filled in orange, green and violet secondary colors and the neutrals in the center. I finished it in my studio so the class wouldn't lose painting time next week. I'll show them the finished wheel, explain a couple of things and they can examine it more closely later if they wish. Mind you, I'm not advocating having or using all these colors. I want to show that there's a continuum around the color wheel that reveals temperature relativity from one color to the next. This is a good exercise for your "color eye," to see if you can distinguish between warmer and cooler colors and see how their neighbors on the wheel influence their temperature. The colors around the perimeter of the wheel are mostly high tinting-strength, high-intensity colors. Except for a few colors in the red area, outside the perimeter are the low tinting-strength, high-intensity colors. Inside the wheel are the low-intensity colors and neutrals.

Here's the test sheet for the colors I did today. It doesn't matter whether you make a wheel or swatches, but this is a good way of learning about your paints. As I said in an earlier post, the color wheel above is similar to the one I made for my first Exploring Color book, published in 1985.

Exploring Color for Kids

On reading my recent blogs about comparing color temperatures, Laura Lemley of Potomac Valley Watercolorists in the Washington, DC area, emailed the following (used with her permission):

In addition to painting, I teach children 6 to 18 years old. They are just as excited as your adults to learn to recognize the warm to cool range in watercolor paints. I started the 8 weeks of lessons with the color wheel…they learned color mixing for the colors other than primaries. First they arrange all my tubes of a particular color from warm to cool by guessing. The color stripe and name sometimes give them clues. I take off all the caps and I read the name of the color to them as they take turns painting a ½” wide stripe from pure to tint on a “chart” (long narrow strip of watercolor paper. When they see that one is out of place, we mark it to be cut and put in the correct order. Afterwards they select three they like from the chart and do a painting. There was an outstanding painting of a brown red horse in an orange red tall grass field with a warm red tinted sky by an eight year old! The older children chose to make a pop art collage of red objects from magazines to make a bouquet including tints, pure color and shades. If you have any teachers who need ideas, you might pass along my enthusiasm for painting color with your guidance!

What a fun way for kids--or anyone--to play with color. Thirty years ago one of my boys took an introductory art course and they painted one color in each class, attempting to make a perfect color wheel by the end of the semester. No wonder he hated art class! (He turned out to be a fantastic potter, though.)

Yellow hits the charts

Yesterday we explored yellow watercolor paints, working at discerning between the warm and cool yellows. We all know that yellow is a warm color, but which are warmer and which cooler? Some of them are very close and will no doubt differ between brands. I added in several earth colors, some of which ended up closer to orange than yellow, so that's where I put them on the wheel below.

On the chart above the cool yellows are on the right of the paper and the warms on the left. On the color wheel at right the cool ones are heading toward blue (right) and the warm ones are heading toward red (left). When you're mixing colors, yellow is a hard color to darken without changing it into a greenish-olive or a muddy brownish color. It sometimes works better to use the yellows and yellow-oranges in the earth colors toward the center of the wheel to darken yellows. The mixtures are richer.

Seeing Red

Last Monday we explored reds in watercolors, as we did last week with blues. Here's the chart that I did in class, explaining the paint characteristics of each pigment and the relative temperature as I went along. I let the class help me decide where a color belongs. I wish we had full-spectrum lighting in our classroom, because the colors tend to look "off" and I have to remember to mention this. Lighting makes a huge difference when you're exploring colors.

This color wheel gives a better idea of where the colors fit in the continuum around the wheel. The ones on the circle are the best match I can make to the ideal colors. There may be better ones, but I'm just using the ones I have. The colors toward the center are darker, earthier variations of the wheel color. The center color will be black. Around the edges are variations of the main colors, some with weaker tinting strength. Way out at the edge on the left is Opera Rose, a color that is fluorescent and doesn't really fit with the others.
The completed color wheel is shown in my Exploring Color book, first published in 1985 and revised in 1998.

Singin' the Blues

We almost had a full house for the first session of Exploring Watercolor at Hithergreen Center today. Twenty-one returning students, three newbies, one absentee recovering from surgery and one perpetual absentee. (Don't ask.) I decided to get them more involved with different paints. Most have been with me for two or more years and have had the basic color-mixing exercises. Some have tried other colors and others are still using the basic palette. So today we started with the blues. I should have organized the chart, but just put the colors down as I talked about them, so I hope I can reconstruct the thing and tell you the colors in the accompanying illustration.

Top row: Cobalt Blue, Phthalo Turquoise
Second Row: Winsor Blue (Red Shade), Winsor Blue (Green Shade), Cerulean Blue (Red Shade), Cerulean Blue, Ultramarine (Green Shade)
Third Row: Cobalt Turquoise Light, Manganese Blue Hue, Manganese Blue (genuine), Rembrandt Turquoise Blue, Cobalt Blue, French Ultramarine
Fourth Row: Cobalt Blue Deep, Indigo, Indanthrene Blue, Cobalt Blue Deep
Please note that web colors cannot accurately represent paint colors, so the colors shown aren't exact matches for the chart.

We talked about color temperature, discussing the positions of the blues relative to blue-green, which in theory is the coolest color on the color wheel. I also talked about the transparency or opacity, staining property and tinting strength of each pigment. You will find more information on these properties of paints on my web site here and here, and also in my book, Exploring Color.

This was great fun for me and the class asked great questions. Several said they're looking forward to a new color next week.

We're going to do a color per week for awhile to familiarize them with those they haven't used yet. By the time we're finished, they should be able to find the right place for any color they choose.

Painting Shadows

Yesterday's watercolor class was a brief course in light and shadow. I showed them the text and diagrams on pp. 114-116 in Exploring Color . These pages describe how shadows are a translucent veil that allows the color underneath to show through. Shadows can be a neutral gray color, cool blue or violet, or a warm color suggesting the bouncing sunlight. Next we looked at pp. 68-69 in The New Creative Artist which include definitions of qualities of light from highlight through shade, reflected light and shadow.

Then I talked about perspective in shadows and how they are harder-edged and darker at the base of the object and become gradually softer and lighter in value as they move away from it. I stressed the importance of establishing at the start where the light is coming from. In plein air this involves careful observation and being aware that the light is changing as you work. You can paint your shadow pattern first in neutral monochrome and then glaze the colors on top. If you're working from photographs or sketches, careful observation is equally important. And if you're changing the light source, you must be constantly aware of how that affects every aspect of the subject. We also talked briefly about how shadows help to describe the surface of a subject, where hard edges suggest corners and soft edges indicate soft contours. This is true of any subject from figures to landscape. Shadows are key to the illusion of reality in your picture.

Autographing books

Today I started signing The New Creative Artist books that are going out to artists who contributed artwork for it. There are 105, including those whose work was carried over from the original. That's a lot of books to sign! I decided to take my time so I don't make mistakes or get writer's cramp. Ten artists picked theirs up by this morning and I've finished twenty more. They're all packed, labeled and ready to go to the post office in the morning.

I don't quite understand what the fascination is with an autograph, although I'll admit that I usually ask authors to sign if the opportunity arises. I've always signed contributors' copies since my first Exploring Color was published in 1985, but I did two signings at North Light--1985 and 1990--and couldn't personalize the message because it would make shipping too complicated. In 1994 Virginia Lee Williams and I signed and shipped our book from her studio with a personal note in each one. I liked the personal touch. So I was upset when the publisher sent out contributors' copies for Exploring Color Revised without an autograph, because I knew some of the artists would be disappointed--as they later told me they were. I insisted on doing whatever had to be done to sign this new book. I finally picked up the books at the warehouse myself and brought them to my studio.

It isn't easy thinking of 105 different inscriptions for the artists, but at least I'm not in a rush. I'll try to get them done over the weekend so they won't have to wait too long for their books. They've waited long enough already, some for nearly two years.

Paints and quilts

Busy week. Started a new watercolor class on Monday with sixteen returning students and one newbie. I love this class. They're like family. Most of them are regulars; a few come several times a year when they're not traveling or otherwise too busy. The best part is that even when I'm not in town, some of them meet and paint together, which is a great way to keep moving forward. Practice, practice, practice. On Wednesday we went into week four of the Exploring Color class: color mixing. Up till now we've covered color theory basics and pigment characteristics. They're beginning to see temperature differences and recognize transparency, as well as other paint qualities.

Between classes I've been completely re-doing tomorrow's art quilt color workshop for a more advanced level. Instead of going through all the color theory basics, we're going to jump right into color design, color contrasts and color schemes. There's so much to do that a one-day workshop is frustrating to plan, especially when you don't know the students. We'll see how it goes. This will more than likely be my last one-day workshop. It takes just as much work to develop as a longer one, but you're in and out so fast that it isn't very satisfying for me. The students seem to feel they've learned a lot, but it's much better when they have a couple of days to absorb it and try it out in the workshop. Sort of like explaining to someone how to drive a car and then letting them go off on their own to drive it. Well, maybe that's an extreme example, but you know what I mean.

Exploring options in color

I'm always amused when I'm teaching a new class, whether in watercolor, color, collage or design, to find students who firmly avow that they do things in a certain way and aren't about to change. This isn't typical of every class, but now and then one shows up. All I can do is think to myself, "So, why are you here?" I try to be flexible and help them do what they want to do. Sometimes they come around to trying something different and sometimes they don't. We'll see how this plays out in my current color class. Most of the students are working on pigment studies and learning a lot about paint characteristics. A couple have skipped lightly over these, one saying she already knows all that and the other insisting that she is happy with her limited palette and doesn't like all the bright colors, which hurt her eyes. The first I gave an assignment to paint the four seasons using a different set of primaries for each one to better express the qualities of the season through color. She said, "I always use the same colors for all my paintings." Period. End of discussion. I asked her to try it, showing how Phthalo Blue makes a cooler, more wintry sky than French Ultramarine; how Lemon Yellow with Phthalo Blue makes a spring-ier green for trees. She agreed to try it, but I didn't feel she was happy about it. I looked at her sketches about halfway through and could see the seasons revealed in her colors. She finished them off beautifully and I think she was pleased, albeit a little grudgingly. I found the second student looking at pure-hue color wheels in my workbook and holding her head, as if in pain. She says she just wants to learn to use the colors she has. She doesn't think she needs more colors, because she can do what she wants with what she has to mix naturalistic landscape colors. I turned the workbook to a page where six color wheels show different combinations of primaries, including earth hues. In about two seconds she decided she had to have Indigo and maybe a couple other colors on those wheels. I think both are on the way to opening their minds about exploring color options to get more excitement in their work. We'll see in a couple of weeks what the next challenge brings.

What do you know about your paints?

It's astounding how many artists reply, "Nothing" or "No more than I have to know." It isn't that hard to learn the composition of your paints, their handling characteristics, and how different brands compare, but it can sure save you a lot of grief in your painting (and a few dollars in your wallet) if you take the time to do it. Most people accept printed brochures from paint companies as their guides, without realizing how much difference there is between a printed color and a painted swatch. That's why I wrote Exploring Color --to offer a method for learning about paints and using them creatively. I'm teaching an eight-week class how to explore their colors. The main benefit of such a class is having scheduled time to do the charts and comparisons. I'm seeing a lot of "aha!" expressions as the students work their way through the colors and charts. They have homework, too, because the class falls a few hours short of my five-day workshops and I want to give them the full program. At the end they'll know how NOT to make mud, how to test their paints, and how to use many different palettes for expressive painting.

Exploring basic color theory

I can tell this is going to be a good class. Aside from the fact that four people arrived late (sigh!) and three were on vacation (a given in Ohio in the winter), the orientation went well. Lots of good questions, several aha! moments and a few jaw-dropping, I-had-no-idea reactions to color facts and theories. Great fun for me! I showed slides on the history of color in art because I think it's very helpful to see where color started (30,000 or more years ago) and how it evolved from decorative and symbolic to representational and expressive. I wound up the session with the split-primary color-mixing system from my book, Exploring Color, showed them how to mix the wheel, explaining the theory behind it. They have homework (groan!). Everyone must study the properties of color and do the charts and color wheel. It will be interesting to see how many get it done. Next week we're going to learn all about paint--characteristics of pigments, paint quality, differences in brands, and more. I love this workshop.

Exploring Color Class

I was sorting through my watercolor paints a couple of weeks ago to see if I needed to replenish any of my colors. I had four Ziploc bags full of paint tubes. At one time they were sorted according to the different color systems I teach, but they were all jumbled. I couldn't make any sense out of the way they were sorted, so I went on a search for a better way to carry my paints.I found this 11" x 15" box at WalMart in the fishing tackle department, called a Plano "Connectable Satchel Stowaway" #3870. It's perfect for all my paints and you can also buy a second one that attaches to this one for more paint or other supplies. The dividers are adjustable for 5-22 compartments. The case itself is very lightweight with a carrying handle. I don't remember what I paid for them, but it was very reasonable--under $25 for both, I think. I'm glad I don't have to face my new class with a handful of plastic bags, when I'm trying to teach them something about organizing and understanding color!

Book indexes

The worst part of writing a nonfiction book is compiling the index. I created the index for my first Exploring Color book (1985) using an early version of Word Perfect. You simply tagged a word for the index and WP picked up every place in the manuscript where that word occurred. Easy to do, but the result was useless. I had to go through all the entries and delete all those that didn't provide substantive information on the topic. Too much work! I opted to let the publisher hire an indexer for my second book (The Creative Artist (1990). When I saw it after it was published, the index was so bad they allowed me to redo it. Now I make a point of reviewing the index before my book is published to be sure it suits me. I've forgotten now why I didn't like the index for Creative Collage Techniques (1994), but I had to make a lot of changes there. For the revision of Exploring Color (1998) my editor wasn't happy with the index and didn't have time to redo it, so I volunteered. I've just finished correcting the index for The New Creative Artist (July, 2006). The indexer did much better job than any of the others in my past books, but there are still a lot of things that need work. Unfortunately, the index is the very last thing to be done and it always has to be done yesterday. I don't understand why an indexer would put in separate entries for aerial perspective, single-point perspective and two-point perspective when they are all three on the same page and can all be listed under "perspective." It makes for an oversize index. That's just one example. I suggested a lot of cuts to my editor, but I don't know if she'll have time to make them before the book gets turned in tomorrow. Oh, well, even with my corrections on the other four books, I still can't find anything with my own indexes. Maybe it's just me.

Color bias

Color wheels are based on the properties of light, but pigments aren't pure like light is. Their characteristics vary in transparency, intensity, tinting strength, granulation, viscosity and staining properties. As important as these characteristics are, they aren't the key factor in color mixing. Each pigment also has a distinctive color bias that influences mixtures. Understanding color bias is essential to successful color mixing.

The dictionary says bias is a "preference or an inclination." When you call Alizarin Crimson a bluish-red, you're saying that it is a red that leans toward blue. Most pigments have such inclinations. Determine the bias in a paint color, and you can control mixtures incorporating that color. For example, to mix a good violet or purple, use a bluish-red and a reddish-blue. A yellowish-red or greenish-blue would add yellow to the mixture and dull the color, because yellow is the complement (opposite) of the color you're trying to mix. Yellow is also the third primary color, so when you want to mix bright colors, make sure there are only two primaries in the mixture.

For a more detailed explanation of color-mixing see the split-primary color-mixing system on my web site or my book, Exploring Color.

Using compatible color triads

The other day I said that I don't use earth colors on my palette, except for burnt sienna. But I didn't say I never use them in painting. I love to work with compatible triads, three pigments that have similar characteristics. Here are six three-pigment combinations, loosely based on the traditional red-yellow-blue primary triad.

High-intensity colors are on the left, low-intensity on the right. Usually I limit my palette to just these three colors or their equivalents, but once in awhile I'll include viridian with the delicate colors or perhaps substitute quinacridone gold for raw sienna. You can make your own combinations, based on similarities in transparency, intensity and tinting strength of the pigments.

Compatible triads are discussed more fully on my web site and in my book, Exploring Color.

Too many brushes

I have more brushes than I can use in my lifetime. As a watercolor painter, I have mostly wash brushes, flats and rounds, liners and some specialty brushes like edgers and fans. But I also have acquired a number of oil-painting brushes, a separate set for acrylics, and a selection of beautiful Oriental-painting brushes. What I've learned is that less is more. Whatever medium an artist works in, it does no good to have a fistful of brushes if you haven't mastered the brushstrokes with a few.

Oils and acrylics are less familiar to me than watercolor. I know that you must keep your oil and acrylic brushes separate and not use the same brush for both. I've observed and been advised that it's not a good idea to use bristle brushes for acrylics because the bristles swell up with water and get floppy. Also, they aren't made to be soaked in water and may come loose at the ferrule. So it appears that bristle brushes are the choice for oil painters, along with some sable and other soft hair brushes for blending.

Acrylic painters are advised not to use expensive watercolor brushes, which are easily damaged if not properly cleaned or if used for scrubbing paint onto canvas. Even when used in an aqueous manner, acrylics are hard on sable and sabeline brushes or any brush that is a blend of synthetic fibers and hair. Synthetic brushes are the best choice for acrylics, with varying length of heads and long handles for oil-style painting and shorter handles for watercolor style. You must keep your brushes clean, no matter what medium you use. You can partially restore a brush that has been left to dry with acrylic paint or medium in it by soaking it in isopropyl alcohol and washing with warm water and soap, but you can't bring it back to its original condition. So be sure to keep your acrylic brushes damp while working and clean them thoroughly when you're finished for the day.

I could paint in watercolor forever with three brushes--one-stroke, round and rigger. I learned to paint with a light oxhair 3/4" flat one-stroke brush. This brush, with a head about 1 1/4" long, was the master of all strokes. You could do amazing, streakless washes, beautiful drybrush on the right paper, and even fine lines with the corner. You literally didn't need another brush to do a good, spontaneous transparent watercolor. Now you can't get anything even close to this brush in the catalogs and art stores. Wash-brush heads are much shorter and made of a blend of fibers that doesn't hold as much water and paint. This is why I have one-stroke brushes custom-made for my classes. For finer detail I use a #6 or #8 sable round brush. A good sable brush holds a lot of paint and still makes a beautiful fine line. Many artists use synthetics now, which do detail nicely, but most don't hold as much fluid as a good sable brush. I like a #4 or #6 script, liner or rigger brush to make long, thin lines. The only other brushes I use quite a bit are a striper (a funny-shaped brush that looks like a dagger) and a hake. The striper holds a lot of paint and water and makes a line that goes on forever. I also use a 2"-3" hake brush to dampen my paper or make big gestural marks on a large sheet.

I have just a few synthetic brushes--flats. I use them for exploring paints, when I don't want to flood the small patches of color. Synthetic flats are great for getting straight edges on architecture. They have other uses, but they don't make good workhorse brushes for me.

I've tried to boil the subject down to a few personal observations. If you have suggestions, I hope you'll comment.