Workshop 33 - Day 3

I wasn't able to paint yesterday as I had a full day away from home. I'm not sure this 'really' counts as a daily painting, but I'm working on a large colour chart for the studio. It's 45x30" canvas , using 9 colours (plus white). There is room for 12 charts so I'll do some extra charts outside my 9 colours at the bottom. One with the Zorn palette, one each of my 9 colours plus black, and one more yet to be determined.

This has been such an excellent learning exercise, I can't recommend doing it highly enough. I have been surprised by many of the combinations, especially many of the blends involving Viridian. (Now I know why so many artist's include this on their palette!)

I'll post a photo of the completed chart. I put in about 4 hours today and am only ½ way there.

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Albums: workshop33 temp2, Workshop Photos
Location: Canada

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Comment by Dorian Aronson on June 15, 2014 at 21:06: Roberta I admire your tenacity! This is very hard work and it will reward you! Smiles..............I hope it will rub off on me........;-)

Comment by Michael J. Severin on June 6, 2014 at 2:45: Good going Roberta!! ..I have been hounding everyone for months and months about doing color charts!! When I am not painting a picture, I am doing charts.

Comment by Laura Xu on June 5, 2014 at 4:20: Thank you Roberta for you detailed information. I will give a try someday.

Comment by Birdie on June 5, 2014 at 1:28: @Laura Xu There are many ways to do this. What I did was pick my palette which was Cad Red, Alizarin Crimson, Cad Yellow Deep, Cad Yellow, Cad Yellow Light (Lemon), Viridian, Cerulean Blue, Ultramarine Blue, and Burnt Sienna. Starting with Cad Red, I did the first square straight from the tube, then did 3 tints with white (most use 4 tints but I didn't have room). Next was Cad Red plus a bit of Alizarin, with 3 tints of that mixture underneath. Then Cad Red with Cad Yellow Deep (3 tints underneath), etc. Until you've created a mixture with every other colour.

When making your mixtures you don't want to mix them too strong. You still want your main colour to dominate. It's hard to measure, but I'd guess I'm adding no more than 30% of the other colour to the mixtures.

While it may seem like drudgery, I'm really enjoying the exercise. As I'm making my mixtures I'm thinking of situations where that colour would be perfect. Thoughts such as that's a young girls skin tone, that's sagebrush, that's the distant mountains, etc. keep popping into my head. It's quite fun really!

Comment by Silvana M Albano on June 4, 2014 at 13:01: This is suely an excellent exercise. I must try making combinations!

Comment by Robin Sage on June 4, 2014 at 12:18: What a great idea.

Comment by Laura Xu on June 4, 2014 at 11:41: Roberta, I am very interested in what you are doing. Do you have any guidline for this? I would like to try some time. I have tried making green chart but never as neat as you did here.