An Exercise for Better Color

'A Quiet Spot'        9x12        pastel         ©Karen Margulis
available $145 

I just couldn't leave it alone. I tried. I had great intentions to paint a black and white landscape. But when it was all said and done Color won. It was a great exercise though. It really brought home the saying the value does the work and color gets the glory.

I started the exercise with a piece of white Canson paper. I only allowed myself to use black, white and a few values of gray pastels. I used a variety of pastels including Terry Ludwigs and Diane Townsend. Working in black and white was fun. It made me work! I had to be sure I had the values in the right place so that I could create volume and depth.

The black and white stage of the painting

Without the distraction of choosing color I was able to concentrate on developing the shape of the trees. Using John Carlson's idea that there are just four values in a landscape helped me create the illusion of depth and kept the values simple.  Darkest value = upright planes, Lightest value = sky
middle value = flat planes, middle dark value = slanted planes.

I came back into the studio after lunch and decided that despite the relative success of the exercise I wanted to play with color!  So I sprayed the black and white painting with workable fixative and painted on top with color! Because I had a value map already it was easier to choose color. The value did the work! I just followed the map.

Try This: Give the black and white exercise a try. Turn a reference photo into black and white to make it easier to see the values. (use a photo program or simply make a black and white copy) Can you leave it as a black and white painting? Or will you be tempted by Color like I was?