Acrylic painting, nature
Posted on by Inesepaints

Million shades of everything: experiment!

Mixing colors: experiment

Did you know that it is possible to mix up quite a few thousands of colors just using ultramarine blue, primary magenta, cadmium yellow medium and titanium white? These color mixes are pretty much unlimited taking into account how slight change in proportion would alter the color. We don’t usually use only premixed colors or paints straight from the tube. Everybody is aware that yellow plus blue allows mixing up greens, and red plus blue creates purple shades.

The power of grey

Acrylic color mixing

Adding yellow to different shades of blue and red causes the graying effect and results in fantastic variations of neutrals. Why do we need grey shades and background neutrals? Well, they make other colors shine. We don’t have to always paint sunsets in order to observe how yellow shines on a grey-blue or purple, but we often need the fairly saturated neutrals to build up some scene or object. They also give all objects more substance.

Acrylic color mixing

Practice!

One can have color charts and theory books and check out all available information on color mixing, yet, not manage it when it comes to painting. How so? We know many things in theory. When it comes to applying the theoretical knowledge in practice, everything is completely different. Theoretical knowledge without decent practicing is worth zero. Therefore, practice!

Importance of experiment

I’m always encouraging students to experiment. Experimenting and exploring is the key to knowledge. There is never only one correct way of painting or drawing something. In fact, there are thousands of ways when we are trying to get similar results. Let’s take for example video tutorials.

Dos and don’ts

How to paint trees? How to paint clouds? How to paint forest? The answer is: whatever way you find it suitable for you because these tutorials will show how to paint trees according to artist X, or clouds as artist Y is seeing and painting them. Artist A might consider such trees incorrect, and B will tell you that nobody should paint clouds like artist Y.

Watching is not doing

While you watch somebody’s demo, it seems to be very easy. However, when you are one on one with brush and paints, things are not the same. The more colors you have, the more confused you might become. Many color mixes yield very close color tones, especially in acrylic when everything becomes much darker as it dries.

Having your own painting supplies

When somebody wants to start painting, they usually are not very excited about spending much money on materials. However, having your own paints, brushes and other tools is very beneficial. We just have to keep art supply list short and buy less.

Acrylic painting, nature
Experimenting is very important for any artist. Mix colors, apply layers, see what your paints can do.

Keep discovery for yourself

Do not allow anybody to steal from you the pleasure of discovery! Some people are very insecure initially since they believe they don’t know enough about painting. There are artists who have more experience, but nobody knows everything about everything. The other thing is that we develop our mastery and build experience only when we take creative risks and dare to explore and experiment.

Early spring, acrylic painting by Inese Poga
Early spring was done entirely during art classes and served as a demo painting

Learn through experiment

Therefore, experiment, experiment, experiment! It is good to ask a question when something is not happening the way you expected. However, there is no need to perform major search online just because you are not sure whether to use blue-green or yellow-green on some area. Do it your own way. It might take longer, but all efforts will pay off when you have painted exactly what you were trying to.

Your creation beats prints

It is much better to have your own painting on the wall than print. Print is a print. It will never have the energy of an original, therefore, it makes sense to frame also kids art because it has that special touch. Does our art have to be perfect? We can certainly try to get to that stage, but absolutely flawless and impressive art is extremely rare. It sometimes happens. Just working towards one great picture at a time brings us to the desired result. which will be the best ever.

Spring road, acrylic painting
Behind the ben: acrylic painting of spring road is 20 x 16 in or 51 x 41 cm art on canvas

Some errors which need to be fixed

Beginners try to paint with hardly any paint, or with a tiny droplet of it. In acrylic that means, it dries almost instantly. Use generous amount of paint and clean brush every time you switch color.

Values are important

Beginning artists always pay attention to color and absolutely no attention to value. We can change color very quickly, but we need strong, medium and light values placed accordingly to our plans in any painting. Therefore: experiment! Good luck!

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39 Replies to “Million shades of everything: experiment!”

    2. That is such a great experience you had! I sometimes think all artists are a bit different because, quite honestly, one goes for art not because of money and not because of fame. It’s all based on endless love and passion, also on understanding and loving nature in all ways it manifests itself. It seems this lady was exactly like that, a genuine friend for you!

    1. Thanks John! It takes me quite a while to get a post done since all materials need to be worked out, but I don’t mind if people like you are stopping by and enjoying!

  5. Inese the work takes me up a path. The idea of vanishing point and perspective is a very intriguing technical discussion in the art world. i Love what you do.

    Reply

    1. Thanks! Well, our task was actually to create composition by thirds, but it didn’t work out in a classroom because of the reasons listed in post. You know, sometimes there’s probably too much information and it may take years until somebody does painting without any thinking about vanishing points, etc. I’m lucky because I was born with ability to draw, therefore that part is easy. Classes try to cover a lot of stuff, and we also have sometimes people who are absolutely new to this. I wish I had more time to do my own paintings!

    1. Nice! Thanks! I think it will find a new house soon. It can be sometimes difficult to sell small paintings, but there is a specific attractive flare to them. This could have been worked out more, but I am happy you liked it.

  7. That was excellent information and really helpful. The part about only a few colors needed is great because I want to buy some better quality paint, than I have been using for the first year.. It was April of 2014 I started, and so didn’t want to spend a lot of money while starting out.

    Also the info about sometimes not using enough paint… I notice sometimes that the back of the canvas shows…. I do try and put a wash on it first as well…

    One thing I wasn’t sure about was you mentioned the color and ‘value’.. What do you mean value?

    In any case, thank you for the help that you’ve been over this past year…. Diane

    Reply

    1. I’m glad you find this helpful!
      Canvas should not show through.
      You could try putting on an additional coat of gesso plus some grey or light brown shade, like cardboard. It’s easier to paint on such.
      Value is not the same what dark or light color. If you had painted everything in one color only you’d still have values: darks and lights, intense and less intense areas. It is helpful with some objects or more complicated scenes to first roughly paint this all in just some brown or dark grey plus white. Later you just go over with color as needed: stronger, weaker, brighter, etc. It is important that the scene or object have dimensions without any colors. This is how you get things right and learn values. I hope that will help, too!

    3. You are very welcome! I would usually add one more coat on canvas which I’m buying at the art store. This, in fact, saves paint because acrylic gesso is acrylic primer. It is easier to work NOT on white canvas. For acrylic, the base coat shouldn’t be too dark because it’s hard to get light colors later. Good luck and try out these mixes, it’s so much fun because you realistically are getting millions of shades. Place sample spots on some card or larger paper, starting with more blue, then more red, then more yellow, and that way you can choose every time which shade you will use. I included just a few in that picture, but there are way more.

    1. Thanks Lorrie! Well, I am happy to make somebody else happy when they find their way to creativity. Well, just took one more clinical trial document. Thankfully, they allowed for a bit longer deadline because I threatened I was not going to do this.

    1. Oh, thanks so much Aquileana! I usually do my paintings having Latvian landscapes in mind. That’s pretty much how rural road would look in some Latvian countryside. The road not taken is a fantastic poem. This painting actually looks very good in reality, I was struggling with its pictures because the light was not right. Thanks for stopping by!

  10. Excellent post, Inese! I talk about this with my students all the time. It is often difficult to share what we do without influence our students in one direction, so I am constantly teaching them different ways of approaching a subject or new techniques that they can store in their back pocket til they need them. When I start a class with beginners, they assume I’m going to tell them exactly how to move their brush and exactly how to paint a tree or a house or a portrait. The paintings, above, are so peaceful. Beautiful, each one.

    Reply

    1. Thanks Leslie! That is a bit of a problem. My guess is because it’s everywhere: how to paint or draw this or that. Beginning students imagine that there are some very strict rules and, just as you are saying, that brush can be moved only this or that way and certain colors applied only where they are supposed to be. It takes time, and those who continue understand that there are millions of ways to do this. Obviously, we are learning the general principles, etc. But it is probably hard to get used to the fact, that rules in art are not like some kind of law. Well, we have to learn. It is not emphasized enough that creation of art is first of all completely individual interpretation of anything, would that be perspective, values, colors, composition, paint application, etc.

    1. I do those very quick ones to show some feature and so on, but later I look at them and most often think they still need some correction. It’s just very few brush strokes. I will be trying to move to only large paintings, though. Unfortunately medical stuff again, until April 1st. Thank you so much for your kind comment!

    2. I have a project to finish, too. I am starting to wonder if I can sustain blogging, being a mom to three kids at home and write novels, too. Some days my hair feels on fire, but I continue to try.

    3. That’s exactly it. My daughter is 35, so she does everything on her own, but blogging takes a lot of time. I’m usually trying to add illustrations and pictures of some accomplished work, so this is a lot of work, just to edit, crop and re-size all pictures, not to mention hours which I need to paint something or to give classes. When I have these huge medical files, the deadlines might be so tight that I have hardly time to eat, it’s mostly working all 12-16 hours a day. Paintings and classes cannot pay expenses so far, that’s very unfortunate, but reality, so I have to slave with medical writing. Good thing is I get the first-hand knowledge and insight on many new medical discoveries, bad side-effects, I also have to type the recall letters, etc. That is something which general audience may quite often not get to know.
      If you have 3 kids, that’s tough. I hope they are over the baby age which is the most difficult.
      However, when I remember myself as a kid, we were doing everything from cleaning the house to garden, and my duty was to cook for the family since I was 12. I also learned sewing when I was 12, I have great pictures from that time, I made coats and pants, jackets and blouses for me because there was nothing at the store those times in Latvia. I didn’t cost much to my parents. LOL It was a great learning experience!
      Writing a novel along with other daily stuff is tough. I know because I have published stuff in my native language, Latvian.
      So be strong!!!

    4. I will be strong. For me and my kids. I hope that if I believe in myself, they will believe in themselves, too. I love your art. I wish you could support yourself on it. Meanwhile, you be strong, too!

    5. That is so true! Kids learn mostly by what they are seeing in their parents, and if you have the belief in yourself, they will have it ,too. I probably would be doing much better if I hadn’t so many things at once. Basically one leads to another, and maybe in summer I will get to more promotion. I wanted to start another blog also. I’ve already written some 20 articles. No time to start. It would be all about health, life, style. I told I had lots of data, people don’t get to see them ever. So, I’ve made plenty of conclusions, based on these data. We need time, you and me, and so many others. See, even with excellent time management, some people just want to get done more. Oh, well. Hopefully, everything we hope for, happens. Have a blessed week!

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