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Tuesday, February 17, 2015

My Favorite Use for Dull Colors

'City Sidewalks II'          8x10         pastel            ©Karen Margulis
available $95
I was looking for a certain red pastel today. I pulled out my box of spare pastels. That is always fun to do. It's like going shopping in my own studio! I didn't find the red I wanted but I did find a few interesting dull colors. Dull colors are interesting? Sometimes they are. And sometimes they are just what a painting needs.

I love color so I tend to avoid the duller colors in my box. I have discussed this before. I love to wear brown but don't like painting with it! For some reason today a few pristine brown pastels looked appealing. I pulled them out of the box of spares and set about finding a subject to paint.

Flipping through my photos I found the perfect choice....a nocturne. And even better it was a cityscape at night. At night we don't see as much color. The colors we do see are dull. Think browns, olives, grayed violets, ochres.  I love finding just the right dull, dark and grayed down color for a night time scene. Night time isn't gray and black! There is color, it is just duller.




Dull colors also allow those bright spots of light found in a cityscape to come alive. The lights will appear to be lit when surrounded by the darker duller colors.

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2 comments:

  1. LauraGee10:06 AM

    Hi Karen, appreciated this latest blog on dull colors and seeing your Cityscape. I wondered if you could comment on whether you used the analogous color wheel for this one, or how it could be used in this particular type of "dull" painting. Thanks.

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  2. Karen8:34 AM

    Thanks Laura! I didn't use a color wheel for this painting. I usually only use the analogous wheel when I need to figure out my spice colors. Good question and I will have to take another look at the wheel and see how I might use it for nocturnes!

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