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Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Doug Dawson Workshop Report...Day 2

'Woodland Walk'. 8x10. Pastel

Today was a colorful day! The focus for the workshop today was on color and color thumbnails. Doug showed us 4 different color choices we could try when doing color studies. He demonstrated them and then we spent the afternoon working out our own color thumbnails. One of the many 'pearls' that resonated with me was how doing color thumbnails can save time by having potential color solutions worked out on small paper. These small studies take less time than working out color on a larger scale.

My painting with my color studies

I chose to paint an interior wooded landscape. I did my four color studies and picked my favorite thumbnail for a bigger painting. Here are some key things I learned.

  • Be sure to do your color studies on the same color paper you will use for the bigger painting.
  • Use limited number of values. We used 4. Get the values correct and you can play with the color.
  • Don't always rely on the same color solutions. We tend to use the same color palettes (our old friends) I'll share ways to help us avoid this in a future post.

Tomorrow is the last day of the workshop and I can't wait to see what's in store for us!

 

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Color is so unique and interesting. It's lots of fun to experiment with in art. Your tips are helpful and your tests are really pretty.

Eden Compton Studio said...

Beautiful work Karen! I have taken many workshops with Doug and he is indeed one of the best teachers around! Have fun!