Secondary colors and their darkened, neutralized (grayed) cast shadows in oil
Primary colors and their darkened, neutralized (grayed) cast shadows in oil
I’d hoped to have more to post tonight than these 8×10 color studies, but nothing else is finished. Also, the colors don’t look quite right on screen–the paintings’ backgrounds are brighter and not so mustardy or greyed looking. [If you want to know more about the process for mixing the colors for the cast shadows click on Comments where I describe it in response to Toni’s question.]
The 5-day weekend that had stretched out so luxuriously ahead of me a few days ago is gone now, and I barely accomplished half of what I’d hoped to do in the studio. But I’ve also done some really important things that I’d been slacking on the past few months, like sleeping, eating properly and exercising AND I spent hours in the studio every day, making progress and enjoying the process.
Now it’s time to clean oil paint off of a dozen brushes and then head off to bed so I get another good night’s sleep then back to the office tomorrow.
Jana Bouc, Artist 
9 replies on “More color studies”
Whoah! This is so instructional and so valuabel to many of us without the know how!!! Very generous and superbly done, Jana. Thanks for sharing!
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Jana! These just POP off the page!! FANTASTIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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These are very amazing – they remind me of something but I can’t remember what! 🙂 Do you thin and clean up with turps or is there a less toxic alternative that works as well?
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Great examples. So are you mixing greys from the primaries?
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Thanks Yari and Lin. Toni, I’m mixing the cast shadows by first mixing a darker version of the body color (for example, adding yellow ochre to darken the yellow or pthalo green to darken the lighter sap green). Then I mix a separate puddle of the complementary color that is matched to the same value as the darker version (making a light violet to match the value of yellow + yellow ochre mixture). Then those two puddles are mixed together (the complement combined with the darkened body color) which creates the shadow color which is darkened and neutralized version of the original color.
Jana
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Alison, About the turps, there are new products that don’t require using turps at all (which I’ve learned is really bad for health, aside from the smell). Gamblin makes the best products–they make Gamsol which is the least toxic thinner/turp substitute with no odor, and Galkyd, an alkyd medium that is also low toxic, low odor. And of course you can work with plain linseed oil too, which smells nice. I haven’t had any problems with smell at all, but it is messier than watercolor. The biggest issue for me is that you have to use so much more paint than you do with watercolor. I’d finally gotten good at being generous with painting mixing in watercolors but I haven’t gotten there yet with oils. It bugs me to have to keep squeezing out more paint and more paint. It takes as much oil paint in one session as a month of watercolor painting!
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Interesting how something so simple can look so strong and powerful. I must try this…
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Great to see you giving your oils a workout! Interesting what you said about getting the shadow colours, must give that a try…although I have to confess I’m not as principled…usually I blunder along trying first this, then that…but perhaps I could save myself a few muddy messes by giving this method a go. Thanks!
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I love these purely as paintings if you see what I mean.
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