Kitty Wallis Advanced Color Intensive Day Two

Mixed temperature value palette

Warm lights and mids, cool mids and darks

Class renderings with warm lights, cool darks

After yesterday's experiments with value palette, today Kitty had us work with temperature. Color temperature is important to understand for any serious painter, but it's seldom discussed in workshops.

First we selected playful palettes but limited the light to midtones to warm colors and the midtones to darks were cool. This sounds easier than it was. Even steps of value between each color change. I discovered some holes in my available pastels.

Using only those colors selected for the palette described above, we rendered another black and white photo to a color painting. Some artists used the same photo reference from yesterday, but I selected a new one.

Finally, we used the palette from yesterday and the new one from today, mixed them together and repeated the exercise. This time we were able to select warm or cool colors. I used the same photo reference so that I could compare the two experiences.

Contrast between dark and light, warm and cool, bright and dull all go toward giving the painter a variety of ways to express his/her ideas about the essence of the subject. Today felt like starting to learn how to play an unfamiliar piece of music. I played a few wrong notes, felt awkward at times, but I'm excited about what is to come!