Mums' Day marked the end of my color chart project; I was thrilled. Today marks the beginning of another project suggested by Richard Schmid: a painted sketch a day? The subject doesn't matter, the color does.
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Cobalt Violet, the color Schmid mentioned as a palette staple, but didn't show in his chart collection. I added to mine.
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| Alizarin was a tricky chart to make. It over powered the other colors easily. It was particularly difficult getting a distinction between the four yellows. |
And those two charts completed Schmid's twelve color palette. But I added one more: Ivory Black.I think black has use on the palette. It make transparent colors opaque.
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To see the color in the darkest shade, a minute dot of white had to be added. Then I worked gradations up to the base mix.
From this chart, one might consider taking the darkest shades and bringing them up towards white, but enough is enough.
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| My wall is complete for now. |
A twelve color palette yielded 864 colors with another 72 on the Black Chart. That should satisfy my color needs.
Max who didn't get the axe got the benefits of the Yellow Ochre Color Family instead. He's coming along much better. My color charts have taken much of the guess work out of determining the appropriate palette for a painting. Over the past weeks I've learned to mix each one with just the right amount of pigment to white and when in doubt, the right color is hanging just feet away.
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| Max is back in action. His dominant coloring is derived from Yellow Ochre. |
I picked up an interesting term from David Hockney over the weekend: SIGHT SIZE. It means choosing a surface size big enough to draw what I see according to the distance between me and the subject. Van Gogh insisted his figurative surfaces were 18 x 24. I like that size too. It allows the painting arm full motion in laying in the shadows, midtones, highlights and lines. For heads, I've been finding this 11" x 9" canvas a tad small. The small size of the space makes me zero in on the face and run off the canvas with the rest of the form. 16 x 12 or 16 x 20 might be more suitable for more comprehensive close-ups? Schmid used 22 x 18. Van Gogh sized his paintings by how many he could get out of a roll of canvas. Hockney constructs his huge compositions in units. Along with painting little squares, I've been doing a lot of reading and video watching.
