IN THE SECOND PART OF HER SERIES, ATELIER TUTOR JULIETTE ARISTIDES EXPLAINS HOW USING TWO COLOURS CAN HELP YOU MASTER WARM AND COOL IN YOUR PAINTINGS.
As a student, I spent many years learning to draw before transitioning to grisaille painting. Yet after only a year of working in black and white, we were given a full high-chroma palette; it felt like I had been on a raw food diet only to be thrown into a milk chocolate fondu fountain. It was a mystery to me why we didn’t gradually transition through a limited colour palette. My teacher’s answer surprised me. He said: “Because it’s harder.”
How could it be more difficult to use two colours than 20? After wrestling with this, I realised it is not only harder, it’s impossible. Can you imagine painting the bright red of a tomato or the emerald green of a pepper if the only colours on your palette are orange and blue? Yet, if your subject matter doesn’t have much high-intensity colour, it could lend itself perfectly to a simplified palette. It takes little to convey a full-colour painting. In fact, depending on the piece, two-colour painters can outperform those using a full palette, even when working from the life model. The limitations of a few colours provides a freedom and mastery; it’s not what you have but how you use it.
CHANGING LIGHT
Colour painting, regardless of your palette choices, is a translation of nature, not a direct transcription; a point more quickly understood in warm/cool painting than with a full palette. There are infinite variations of colour in nature and they shift under natural light and translucency.
Denne historien er fra October 2017-utgaven av Artists & Illustrators.
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Denne historien er fra October 2017-utgaven av Artists & Illustrators.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
Still life IN 3 HOURS
Former BP Portrait Award runner-up FELICIA FORTE guides you through a simple, structured approach to painting alla prima that tackles dark, average and light colours in turn
Movement in composition
Through an analysis of three masterworks, landscape painter and noted author MITCHELL ALBALA shows how you can animate landscape composition with movement
Shane Berkery
The Irish-Japanese artist talks to REBECCA BRADBURY about the innovative concepts and original colour combinations he brings to his figurative oil paintings from his Dublin garden studio
The Working Artist
Something old, something new... Our columnist LAURA BOSWELL has expert advice for balancing fresh ideas with completing half-finished work
Washes AND GLAZES
Art Academy’s ROB PEPPER introduces an in-depth guide to incorporating various techniques into your next masterpiece. Artwork by STAN MILLER, CHRIS ROBINSON and MICHELE ILLING
Hands
LAURA SMITH continues her new four-part series, which encourages you to draw elements of old master paintings, and this month’s focus is on capturing hands
Vincent van Gogh
To celebrate The Courtauld’s forthcoming landmark display of the troubled Dutch master’s self-portraits, STEVE PILL looks at the stories behind 10 of the most dramatic works on display
BRING THE drama
Join international watercolour maestro ALVARO CASTAGNET in London’s West End to paint a dramatic street scene
Serena Rowe
The Scottish painter tells STEVE PILL why time is precious, why emotional responses to colour are useful, and how she finds focus every day with the help of her studio wall
Bill Jacklin
Chatting over Zoom as he recovers from appendicitis, the Royal Academician tells STEVE PILL about classic scrapes in New York and his recent experiments with illustration
