Lesson #6 - Exploring colour mixing

[Lillian]

Karen!  Nice job!  It's a real challenge to paint along with Dennis.   You did it!!! 

Your painting is very well done.  It will be interesting to see the difference when you do in on your own time.

I think the exercise of painting along with Dennis will help you accomplish nice loose style of painting.  For me, that is the challenge.  I tend to spend too much time adding detail.  I think Dennis is helping me break that habit!   

[Karen]

Thanks for your encouragement Lillian and Nina (NHC50?) I agree with you about the foreground- thanks for the advice I might have overdone the foreground darkening but I have just done that. I also reduced the hill and altered a couple of
tree heights. I'll stop messing with it now and maybe try another similar scene until we get the replay.

Details

[C.Bodine]

Karen, your painting is beautiful!  I really like the colors you have used.  Great job!!!!

[dennis]

You have done an excellent job considering the facts.  I really love your painting.

You have captured what I was trying to convey - modify a very bland green photograph into a very interesting painting. The fact that you have not copied mine exactly does not worry me at the least.

It tells me that you are very creative and can redesign to suit - fantastic

PS 
Don't lighten the foreground - helps to force the eye to the focal point just beyond the stream
I think Nolan should answer you question about the replay.

[Bhavna]

I missed the live class this time  Have to wait for replay....
Karen, I like you painting, highlight on tree are very well done. 

[Leana]

  really nicely done Karen.   

[NHC50]

Hello Dennis,
I have a question. On Karen's picture. you said not to darken the foreground. I have always been told that you darken the forgound to draw your eye through the picture. Please understand I am trying to learn here. Karen's first picture I thought needed some life in the front [foreground] Her second painting to me looks better and it makes me want to look farther into the picture to see what is beyond the stream. So now I think I am  By asking these question I learn. thanks
Nina

[eftpower1]

Karen,

Wow. to do that on the fly is awesome!! The sheep are so neat, they even have little legs   the tree shapes and colors within each tree are impressive as is the distant mountain, really gives a sense of depth.  The whole painting is powerful

Dennis:
I do have a compositional question. When I enlarged the gallery image to "Supper Size"   I found my eye wanting to leave the painting when it got to the upper right tree line..  I think because of the lighter tone under the right hand trees, yet I thought we where encouraged to paint light next to dark

[dennis]

Nina, I did not comment on Karen's first picture at all - only on the second one where I asked her not to lighten the foreground which she had already done at he request of others She was wanting to lighten it thinking it was too dark.

Brian, the object of this exercise was about changing the garish greens. I did not bother too much about the final compositional rules per se. Yet if you follow the line of the river you will find that the eye is blocked by the fence line and is led back into the picture by the highlighted edge of the 2nd tree from the right.
 

[NHC50]

Thanks Dennis. I am glad to hear that. I thought I was losing it. 
Nina

[NHC50]

Dear Dennis, I have been working on my color charts. [not painting pictures] Which has opened a whole new world of color to me. It is so interesting what colors I get when I mix different colors together. Especially the blacks. I was mixing french ultra. blue with yellow ochre WOW that was awesome. Since fr ultr bl. has a red tint in it. It has been fun. But now I need to ask a question. How do I tell if a color is cool or warm. Some of them I can figure out. But for example cerulean blue I think it is a cool color. How? I just guessed. I have nothing to back it up. How do you know what is in it, to presume it is cool? So where does it and cobalt blue belong, sap green, or lemon yellow on the color wheel? Hope I have not confused you. I am now after I wrote this.  I believe doing these charts will help me a lot. Because I have always been guessing at  colors. BUT IT DOES TAKE A LOT OF TIME.
Nina

[nolan]

just look at the amount of depth the different colours of the trees add to the painting - you must have painted like a bat out of hell to keep up - super painting Karen, well done

[Val]

Nina ... you have hit on THE subject! I have been asking the same question. I cannot look at a colour and say, this is a warm, or this is a cool colour. I thought I must be very odd (shush boys), as I've heard people say oh I don't like that colour it makes be too hot, or it makes me feel cold.    I just thought it was a nice colour    I look at my reds, and I look at my blues, yellows, greens .... they're all nice colours but which is warm and which is cool? No idea ..... 

[eftpower1]

Dennis,
Thank You

[NHC50]

Val I understand what you are saying. Now some of the colors I can figure out they are simple. But some of these weird colors like madder lake, is that on the cool side or the warm side. or azo yellow which I think it is warm.  I know the names don't mean anything. It's the color. There has to be an easy way of figuring it out.
That is why we have Dennis and Nolan somebody has to keep them on their toes. 
Nina