The perfect "cool" yellow

For some time now, those of you who've studied with me will be aware, I've been advocating a palette (both in acrylic and in oil) based around the use of warm and cool variants of the basic red-yellow-blue triad. This was based on my interpretation of the book Blue and Yellow Don't Make Green by Michael Wilcox. But the cool yellow was always a problem. The closest I could seem to get in the store was lemon yellow or pale yellow.

But I have discovered Titanate Yellow, a very cool (almost greenish) yellow, and I know that it is available at Jerrysartarama.com from Golden (for acrylics) or Grumbacher (for oil paints.)

Colors are not particularly true on the web and can vary from website to website, but here are a few samples of the Titanate (or Nickle titanate) color.
Sample of Golden Acrylic's Titanate Yellow

And of Grumbacher's Nickle Titanate Yellow in Oil:

I consider this color a strong addition to your palette because it permits you to make a brillient green when paired with Phthalo Blue.

Five Winter Paintings

Winter 4

I've completed five tiny (8" x 10") winter scenes for a local realtor, who gives them to clients as good will gifts at the holiday season. Your can see all five on my website and also the ones I produced last year. These would also make good xmas cards and, as artist, I hold the rights to reproduce them as prints or cards despite their sale. Contact me if you are interested.

Some New Paintings by Pam Coulter

The following paintings are newly completed except for signing and edge painting. I thought you'd like to see them. Each of these paintings was done as a "demo" over several sessions. The first was done for my class in oil and acrylic painting at the Reston Community Center (Fall, 2010). It was done from a reference photo of the sun rising (or setting?) seen through the mist. It has a peaceful mood to it.

Mist on the River, 16 x 20, acrylic on canvas

The next painting, Still Life with Apples, was set up in my studio for a studio lesson with only 1 student. I wanted to keep it simple, and that simplicity is endearing, I think, with dominant browns and reds against a pale neutral backdrop.

Still Life with apples, Jug, 14 x 18, oil on canvas

For the second still life in the studio, I got a little more daring, with blues and greens dominant, offset by the brilliant orange. I am particularly pleased with the result. The book shown in the painting is a small book featuring the German Expressionist school of art.

Still Life with Oranges, 16 x 20, oil on canvas

The discovery of Prussian Blue

Browsing the web, I discovered a fascinating piece on the discovery of Prussian Blue on About.com/painting. You can read the article here.

I should say that Prussian Blue (and its more modern counterpart, "Thalo" or Pthalocyanine Blue) are very strong, staining pigments, not to be used in large quantities. They will overwhelm any color with which they are mixed, and they will overwhelm any painting if used in any quantity.

That said, Prussian or Thalo Blue is a warm blue which, mixed with lemon or zinc yellow, makes a bright, jewel-like green. I include it on my recommended limited palette because of that, but it should be used sparingly and with caution.

Current shows

Two of my paintings (one large and one small) were accepted in the Art League of Alexandria November show at the Torpedo Factory in Alexandria, VA.

"Uhaul" is 30" x 40" and painted in Acrylic. As reference, I used a photo I took in Florida of a Uhaul truck drawn up to a warehouse. The contrast between the very bright and controlled shapes on the truck and the truck itself and the shades of gray in the rest of the scene interested me.

Uhaul by Pam Coulter

"Rainforest, St. Kitts" is a very small ink and watercolor sketch done while on a cruise to the Caribbean. It is matted and framed to 8" x 10". I use watercolor for casual sketching and visual notes because it helps me "translate" what I see from the sometimes rather confusing "reality" of the photographic world to a more poetic one.

Rainforest St. Kitts by Coulter

They will be on display through December 6 at the Art League Gallery.

Art and "authority"

Be wary of anyone citing "authority" in the field of art. Art is about creating. So there will always be those who are creating new things, some of which will not be appreciated. Remember that the impressionists, the cubists, the surrealists, the abstract expressionists, were all shunned in their time. And today, there are those who would tell you that there is only one acceptable kind of art.

From my vantage point as an art teacher, often dealing with beginners who would put me on a pedestal because of my greater experience, I find it particularly important to remind myself of this. I am usually teaching "the basics." And the basics are important. But it is also important to validate the creation of the individual artist. He or she may not have the scene exactly right, or the colors, but that creation nevertheless is important.

The field of art is full of authorities. Listen to them, because they have knowledge. But beware of wholesale acceptance.

Here's an example: A student recently asked if she could use a fan brush to make the leaves on the trees. I immediately replied that the purpose of the fan brush was blending. Then I backtracked, because you could use a fan brush for foliage, and many do. It's not its original purpose, but — hey — why not?

Painting About.com website has more on the use of the fan brush.
http://painting.about.com/od/artsupplies/ig/Intro-to-Art-Paint-Brushes/Brush-Fan.htm

What hue should you use

Here's some more on color from my book. Please note this is copyrighted.

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Traditionally, painters use a color wheel whose primary colors are red, yellow and blue. A very limited palette of red, yellow, blue and white might include just permanent red, hanza yellow medium, ultramarine blue and titanium white. You will find, however, that, because paints are not perfect “primary” colors, you need a limited palette of at least two reds, two yellows, and two blues (one of each hue veering towards the “warm” and other towards the “cool” spectrum. Alternately, you could build your palette around the primary and secondary hues: red, yellow and blue would be the primary and orange, green and violet the secondary colors.

The history of the color wheel is interesting. In the mid-eighteenth century, scientist Isaac Newton’s experiments with prisms resulted in the theory that red, yellow and blue were the primary colors, although color theory no longer supports the concept that all other colors can be mixed from these primaries.

At the time of the Impressionists, some innovative theory on color was being developed.  A Mr. Chevreul was establishing a color wheel and Mr. Rood had just published a work on the theory of color in 1881. The Impressionists (and Neo-Impressionists) adopted these theories and arranged their palettes according to the chromatic tables furnished by the physicists.  "Following the theory that light, broken up in a prism, gives off seven colors, they adopted these seven colors on their palettes."  They excluded black.  Duranty, a prominent writer of the time, felt that they were handicapped by this.  Unlike the "true" Impressionists, Mary Cassatt, Edgar Degas, and Edouard Manet did not exclude black, but used it richly.  (This last information was extracted from Mary Cassatt 1844-1926, National Gallery of Art, 1970 Exhibition Catalogue)

Some color theory

The following is an excerpt from my forthcoming book. Yesterday, students my class at ArtSpace Herndon once again voiced a concern about how to mix color. This is a little information intended to help. As I've said before, the best way to help is to put paint to canvas.

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General Color Theory

Hue is the property which distinguishes red from green. If you ask “what hue is the sea?” the answer might be: “Aquamarine” or “ultramarine” depending on where you are (and the weather). Hue is determined by the wavelength of the color. The colors of the rainbow are considered hues. Browns and grays are not hues.

Value (lightness-darkness) applies to color as well as the gray scale. Yellow has a naturally light value and blue has a naturally strong (dark) value.

Saturation refers to how much pure pigment of the desired hue is present versus medium or other hue. You can de-saturate a pure color by adding white, gray, black, or the complement of the color. Saturation is often referred to as color intensity or chroma, although chroma has a slightly different meaning to a purist. (Visual artists don’t usually seem to pursue this distinction.)

Temperature refers to whether the color is perceived as warm or cool and is a relative term. Red may seem warm in relation to blue, but may seem cool if placed next to orange.

These attributes (qualities, properties, or characteristics) work together to create depth and composition on the two-dimensional plane.

There are some additional terms, such as “shade” (amount of black added) “tint” (amount of white added, and “intensity” (the brightness or dullness of a hue). But I think the main concepts it’s important for a painter to get are the first four.

Use of reference material in creating "ART"

Often, when teaching a class of students using photos as reference material, I find myself pointing out things that they haven't seen in the photo, or correcting their drawings with reference to the photo.  But the duplication of a reference photo in its exactitude is not precisely "ART" (although it is handy as a tool for learning the basics).

Sometimes I will tell the student to stop(!) painting on a painting in progress, not necessarily because it is "finished" but because it communicates. (Often they don't listen to me, because (after all) it's their painting, not mine.)

But I am indebted to Sherry DeReuter for the above painting, an adaptation of a photo we were using.

it is painted with the palette knife, and it could be more "finished", but this painting communicates a mood. The small bits of light orange coming through the clouds are emphasized by the surrounding dark. The photo below is the one students are working from.

Nascar Crash

My semi-abstract painting: "Nascar Crash" (40" x 30") was accepted for inclusion in the August show at the Art League Gallery at Torpedo Factory, Alexandria VA. This is an interesting painting, painted for a show which didn't occur while I was a member of the Max21 group a year or so ago. I have always liked it but didn't have a clear exhibit opportunity until now, the annual "'Scapes — International Landscape show." Art League shows are very competitive. There were over 700 entries for this show. Typically, only about 100 paintings make it in. Juror for the show was Joey Manlapaz. Manlapaz maintains a studio on Capitol Hill and is a faculty member at the Corcoran College of Art and Design.