A Painting a Day - Day 11

Yesterday I decided to try Acrylics again. I just had to paint this vibrant red flower that was in my head. I didn't have any reference to look at, which made it kind of fun, reacting to the paint, the composition and the colors and not trying to match something.

I have looked at so many flowers throughout the years and studied them closely in my Botanicals that I felt comfortable doing that. Sort of like cooking, when you make a favorite dish without having to look at a recipe.

I think it could use a little work in the center, but overall I felt pretty good about it, and about the intensity of color I was able to achieve, again just using red, blue and yellow. Acrylic dries quickly but not so quickly that I couldn't blend and finesse as I wanted to. I am definitely having fun with this medium.

I talked about Complementary colors in my last post so I thought I'd back up a bit and talk about the Color Wheel.

This is Goethe's Color Wheel. The poet, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's work "Theory of Colours" was published in 1810 - the earliest published descriptions on color theory. He was mainly interested in painting and how color is perceived as opposed to scientific, analytic measurements such as Isaac Newton observed. Who knew!

Here is some simple color theory: Red, Blue and Yellow are the three primary colors. You can't make them by mixing any other colors.

Secondary Colors: Orange, Green and Violet are made by mixing two primary colors together - Red and Yellow to get Green; Blue and Red to get Purple; Blue and Yellow to get Green. You probably learned that in Kindergarten.

Tertiary (ter'-shee-airy) Colors are the ones in between! Yellow Orange, Orange Red, Blue Violet, Red Violet, Yellow Green and Blue Green.

Returning to Complementary colors for a moment, notice how the red pops against the green - try the staring thing from yesterday's posting and see what happens! Look around you today and see if you can find examples - send them to me! Together we can learn more about Color Theory!

"What you don't feel, you will not grasp by art, 
Unless it wells out of your soul 
And with sheer pleasure takes control, 
Compelling every listener's heart. 
But sit - and sit, and patch and knead, 
Cook a ragout, reheat your hashes, 
Blow at the sparks and try to breed 
A fire out of piles of ashes! 
Children and apes may think it great, 
If that should titillate your gum, 
But from heart to heart you will never create. 
If from your heart it does not come." 
--Goethe

More next time!
--R.