Compliment Painting Sandpoint Marina

Composing: Here is a marina photo. Take the photo and recompose the format if you wish.

Some examples: The compliment colors I will paint this piece in will be Blue Green and Red Orange.

Pigment Properties Chart: Waterproof India Ink, Pigment Swatch and lift out

If you really want to know what a pigments properties are or  I also call them personalities make a Color Properties Chart.  Start with waterproof India Ink. Let this dry bone dry. Using your one inch 995 Winsor Newton flat water color brush, lay down a 3" swatch of pigment across the India Ink. 

• If it disappears its basically a transparent watercolor and will lift out easily on watercolor paper.  
• If it makes the India Ink darker it is a stain and it difficult to lift out in a watercolor painting. 
• If it leaves a film its is opaque and will set heavy on your watercolor paper.

Note the small white line above the black India Ink  this was lifted out using a 995, 1/2" Winsor Newton flat watercolor brush.  If the pigment doesn't lift out well you know it has stain properties. Note the bottom left Manganese Blue the line came off to pure white paper. This is very transparent and lifts easily from your paper.
This knowledge helps you orchestrate your watercolor design and will make you a master painter.

Mixing Purples, Oranges and Greens from primary hues.

Mixing Purples: Reds are placed along the top. Blues and one green with a blue undertone on the left side. Note how some mixtures are pure neutrals with separation of pigments as they dried. Some wonderful Red Violets emerged and Blue Violets. Some Blue mixtures of blues simple were just blue. Look at the separation qualities of some of the pigments.  Some pigments are heavy and settled to the bottom while other pigments are light and set on top of the mixture. A Happy Experience.

Mixing Oranges.  Warm Yellow Hues are place along the top. Red Hues are placed on the left side. Follow the line of color to see what mixed Hues are made from two different pigment

Mixing Greens Note the different warm tones along the top of the page used for a green Hue mixture. Cool colors were placed to the left. Pigments were then mixed. Fascinating how some pigments are transparent and pure other are have granulation properties others opaque.

About these mixtures: There are many different books with exercises to mix secondary colors. It is of up most importance that you create your own charts with the pigments that you like and have preference too.
Then these mixtures become your own and you will have knowledge of how best to orchestrate them on your design.

Composition Devices and Resource Reconstruction

Compositional Devices

Ways in which artist can organize the elements and principles of design are called a composition device.

Like Music and Writing, Compositions fall into categories:

The Definition of a cat·e·go·ry/ˈkatəˌgôrē

NOUN:

A class or division of people or things regarded as having particular shared characteristics: "five categories of intelligence". One of a set of classes among which all things might be distributed

   Music categories : Classical, Western,Modern, Rock, Gospel and Ballads

Writing Categories:  Fiction, Biographies, Romance, Narrative, Memoir, Poetry, Short Story, Speeches.

Composition categories: Steel Yard, S or Compound Curve,  Horizontal Bands,Vertical Bands, Framing or Arabesque, Cruciform also called  Crossroad or Hanging T, Checkerboard, these are just a few.

Steel Yard

 
S or the Compound Curve

Horizontal Bands

 

Salt Lake City Temple. Temple Square Salt Lake City Uath

   This is the Salt Lake City Temple at Christmas time. The Salt Lake Temple is in, of course in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States of America.   My Great Grand Parents helped build this temple, it took forty years. The Temple is a sacred house of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The photo was taken by my husband Dr. Jay T Ellis "HTC, Droid Incredible" Cell Phone.

Wet in wet and direct painting method. Sunflower resource

Wet in wet process. The large sunflower was left white by painting water around the flower then adding pigment into a wet in wet method. 

This is four steps into the painting.

Brittany's Beginning Wash. 

Great first wet in wet wash with excellent water proportion and pigment porportions. 

Note the granulation of the wash as a result of enough water and the use of gravity by placing the piece on a slanted incline of about 20%.

Glazing: Using layering of transparent pigments. Trumpet flora.

Resource in color 

Gray scale

 

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The shapes of values. Here are five flat values from the above gray scale.

Sketching your values in flat patterns help you see the interest of your shapes. Note the long gray line created by the shape 1/3 from the left side of the painting. 

Now is this interesting or boring?   This strong line cuts the painting, dividing the piece into a left and right side making it into two paintings.  

To correct this add a gray shape into the light gray shape on the flower this will tie it together 

and add a light shape without losing the form behind the gray line.

Step one always start with the lightest color.

 Step two orange. 
This one is a transparent mix of Aureolin and Quinacridone Rose

Step three add red. This red is Quinacridone Rose

Step four add a cool. This is Cobalt Blue or Ultramarine Blue.
This blue is very granulating I would say its Ultramarine Blue.
Which one would be the best to use? Depends on how dark the darks are in your resource.
Ultramarine Blue has a lower value straight from the tube then Cobalt Blue.
Finished piece is coming.