If you are just starting out in painting, one of the first areas I suggest you learn is how light and shadow work. It influences almost everything we do as artists – the colors we use, our compositions, our brushwork, how we render form and so on. It is also one of the few aspects of art … Read more
Black is a very polarizing color in the art world. Some people swear by using black, and others avoid it all together. In this post, I want to try and clear up some of the confusion around black and provide you with some information on how to use it in your paintings and how to mix … Read more
When you start painting you will make all kinds of mistakes. That is just part of the journey. Making mistakes is not an issue in painting, provided you are able to identify the mistakes and learn from them. The problem when you are a beginner is that you will not be able to see most … Read more
Most people will be familiar with the artist’s color wheel, but many do not understand how to properly interpret it. The color wheel is essentially the visible spectrum of colors wrapped in a circle and it is a useful tool that helps explain what happens when we mix our paints together. In my opinion, the … Read more
Muddy colors are one of the biggest frustrations for my readers. In this post, I will break down what muddy colors actually are and how you can avoid them in your paintings. I cover: What Are Muddy Colors? The phrase muddy color is often used to describe grays, browns and other desaturated colors. You will … Read more
This post features 7 colorful landscape paintings to hopefully spark your inspiration, as they have done for me. In these paintings, the dominant feature is color rather than composition, value, brushwork or any other element. It is actually very challenging to pull off a painting where color is the dominant feature because if you are … Read more
In this post, I discuss how you can paint under different light sources. This post is a follow-on to my post about color temperature. Introduction The single most important factor which determines what colors we see is the light source. It is light which allows us to experience color. Light is also what unites all … Read more
Color temperature generally refers to how “warm” or “cool” a color is. But if only it were that simple. It seems every artist has a different interpretation of what color temperature means in art. In this post I want to break down color temperature and what it means for us artists. What Does Color Temperature … Read more
The age-old question – are black and white actually colors? This is an interesting question to ask, especially for us artists, as it raises some interesting discussions about what color is and how we see color. The answer varies depending on your perspective. I discuss why below. From a Scientific Perspective From a purely scientific … Read more
The Zorn palette refers to a palette of colors attributed to the great Swedish artist Anders Zorn (18 February 1860 – 22 August 1920). It consists of just 4 colors yellow ochre, ivory black, vermilion, and titanium white. Cadmium red light is commonly used in place of vermilion by modern-day artists. Whilst this may seem like … Read more