Color Charts: All Sorts of New Lessons

For my non-artist followers, lot's been happening and I'll be updating in a new post (today or tomorrow) about art exhibit acceptances and great art events that are right around the corner (coming up soon) plus other news.

Unmixed Tube Colors

For my artist followers, I've been working away at learning more and more about color. I believe when I'm done (whenever that will be) with concentrating on my own personal color lessons, I will be a true expert... with some great benefits for my future paintings. I plan on sharing what I've learned (to help your future paintings) through a special weekend workshop this Fall or Winter, on my blog and later my web site, and in the regular classes I teach (Portrait Painting and Drawing -- nine week course starting this Monday, September 13, now full and Still Life Painting in Oils -- nine week course starting this coming Tuesday, September 14, almost full. See my web site for more info: www.jillbanks.com, click on Classes). I'm also considering writing a book about the topic. (Not sure when I'll find the time, but I know that the process of writing down what I've discovered about color will spur me on to learn even more... so WORTH the time and effort.)

Permanent Alizarin Crimson Predominant Chart

I both love color and the power of color. Through it, I convey atmosphere, mood, focus attention, keep  harmony, describe a sense of space. Through trial and error and experience, I've gotten to know and adjust my palette (a continuing process) so that I can see and reproduce the colors of the subjects I choose to paint. Still, it's been a matter of mixing two colors together that seem to be the most likely combination to produce what I want ... then I lighten or darken, change temperature or adjust with more of those two colors and/or some other color on my palette.

Winsor Lemon Predominant Chart

While I'm sure I'll still be doing some of that (adjusting, adding, etc.), I'll soon be mixing a much closer or the exact color from the very start. Wouldn't that be fantastic? What a time and effort saver! I can paint more paintings.

So, how is this all going to come about? I've been taking Richard Schmid's advice (from his Alla Prima: Everything I Know About Painting book) and creating color charts from my carefully considered current palette, specific to the manufacturer of each color that I use, to develop a whole spectrum of colors, color combinations in value ranges from one to five. It's time-consuming and requires a great deal of concentration, but I'm learning as I do it ... and have a great guide for those future paintings in the making. So far, I have 4 charts completed of the 16 I plan to create.

These are done from the following palette:

• Transparent Earth Red (like Transparent Red Oxide), more permanent than Burnt Sienna which I used to use. (Gamblin)
• Permanent Alizarin Crimson (Gamblin)
• Quinacridone Red (Gamblin)
• Venetian Red (Gamblin)
• Cadmium Red Light (Gamblin)
• Yellow Ochre (Gamblin)
• Cadmium Yellow Deep (Winsor & Newton)
• Cadmium Yellow Pale (Winsor & Newton)
• Winsor Lemon (Winsor & Newton)
• Viridian (Winsor & Newton)
• Pthalo Green (Gamblin)
• Cobalt Turquoise Light (Winsor & Newton)
• Cobalt Blue (Winsor & Newton)
• French Ultramarine Blue (Winsor & Newton)
• Cobalt Violet (Gamblin)
• Titanium-Zinc White (Gamblin)

From doing these experiments, I will possibly "weed" some of these colors out, to reduce the size of my palette of colors. But -- that will only happen if my color range and the convenience factor (of using a color straight from the tube) is not affected (much). I've developed this palette over time, adapted from teachers and what's happened to work for me. It's a pretty terrific palette. Expensive, though.

I'll share more about how I'm constructing the charts and some of my conclusions in future posts ... or possibly my web site. (I'll let you know.) So more to come...

I took the photos of my first couple of charts under Tungsten light ... (so the color is wrong) ... since the sun went down before I could photograph them. I'll replace them with less blurry, truer color versions ... again, sometime soon. In the meantime, ignore all the screwy things about this glimpse into my project. Please.

For those following my house renovation news, we now have about half of a new roof with a forecast of rain for tomorrow (yikes) and I picked -- and the painters painted -- my first wall color on the main level. Perhaps because of all these color lessons lately, I was certain (for the first time) of the color I wanted to replace the very red walls in our two-story family room. I picked ... drum roll, please ... Sherwin-Williams' Casa Blanca, a beautiful white. With a room full of windows opening to lots of trees, I now see the outdoors and our stone fireplace stands out. What a transformation!!! I left the studio many times today to stretch and stare at how pretty it is. Yea!

Web: www.jillbanks.com
Blog: jillbanks.blogspot.com
Email: jillbanks1@aol.com
Phone: 703.403.7435
For info on Fall classes: www.jillbanks.com/jillbanks/Classes_3.html
Great Falls School of Art registration form: www.jillbanks.com/jillbanks/Registration_Form.html

Colors and Whites: What I Learned Today

In anticipation of the start of my classes next week (a couple of spaces left -- see my web site: www.jillbanks.com, click on classes for info), I've been studying ... reading ... thinking about painting. This past weekend and on the rides to and from Williamsburg, I was rereading my favorite (note: not one of my favorites ... this one's my favorite) art book, Richard Schmid's "Alla Prima: Everything I Know About Painting." He mixes a tremendous amount of inspiration along with extraordinarily clear writing about art solutions/thinking/techniques. It just couldn't be better.

I'm currently reading through his section on color and light. He was instructed to create color charts by his teacher, Bill Mosby, to learn his palette. I've never done this formal exercise ... but as of today, I'm going to start. (Plus, students be warned: WE'RE going to do this. Homework.) The lessons Richard Schmid learned doing this were invaluable. I learned just by seeing what he'd done and can't wait for more a-ha moments along the way.

This also led me to looking up color info on Gamblin's (an oil color and medium manufacturer) web site. There's so much info there!!!  I looked up reds (learning more about Perylene red and the Cadmiums and the impermanence of Alizarin Crimson and the new developments in Permanent Alizarin), violets (made me go out and buy and try Cobalt Violet today -- an AMAZING color -- and confirmed my suspicions about Dioxizine Purple, a sort of out-of-control color), and whites. When I got to the white section ... WHOA. The descriptions of each white gave how/when each should be used according to their properties. I have primarily been using Titanium white ... because that's what we used at Studio Incamminati when I took workshops there on portraiture/color and because, as a messy painter, I didn't want to worry about wearing lead from flake white paint.  So, today, I went on a major shopping spree (necessary) to Plaza Arts, I bought two 150ml tubes of Gamblin's Titanium-Zinc, one tube of Titanium, and one tube of Flake White Replacement. Titanium-Zinc was recommended as the best white for color mixing as too much Titanium is needed to lighten colors, making them chalky before they get light enough. Well, I tested  Titanium-Zinc today and I'm a HUGE fan. This was actually the white recommended by Kim English for a plein air workshop I took a while ago ... and suddenly, it all makes sense. (To me, anyway.) I worked more on a commission that's one step from completion using Titanium-Zinc as my white ... and, wow.

This is the tip of the iceberg of what I learned today. Plus, I know how I'm going to approach learning that much more tomorrow and the next day. I'm on cloud nine. I can't wait.

Oil painting is a never-ending discovery. There is no way to know it all. You peel away one level of understanding to find out just how much farther you have to dig/experiment/study/practice. It's a lifetime pursuit. (And then some.)

By the way, I received two rejections today (one in the mail, one on the phone) ... and it didn't make a bit of difference to me. While I prefer to hear good news, like acceptances and awards, that just doesn't happen all the time ... no matter what you do or who you are. And, honestly, I'm so excited to be learning and painting, nothing could burst my mood.

And, for those of you following my house/move progress, I'm starting to get excited about the progress and we will actually be moving furniture in next week. (We've been camping out in our new/older house for almost 2 months.) While we were away last weekend, little elves laid our lower level carpet (where my gorgeous studio is) ... and it looks great. Upstairs is looking better and better. If I just had an elevator to skip the middle/main floor, I'd think we were almost done. Seriously, I can see how wonderful it will be. Now I need to sell about 100 paintings to help me pay for it.

While I'm writing about colors and whites, here's a single-hued drawing from this past weekend. "Barrel" was my favorite of the four done in Williamsburg.

"Barrel", pencil, ink wash and Faber-Castelli pens, copyright Jill Banks 2010.

Web: www.jillbanks.com
Blog: jillbanks.blogspot.com
Email: jillbanks1@aol.com
Phone: 703.403.7435
For info on Fall classes: www.jillbanks.com/jillbanks/Classes_3.html
Great Falls School of Art registration form: www.jillbanks.com/jillbanks/Registration_Form.html