The first week of the semester is kind of crazy for art classes. Everyone is getting their materials, people are adding and dropping the class well into the week. To be sure no one fell behind, we focused more on talking about an introduction to watercolor than actually painting. Here are a few things we learned:
Warm and Cool Colors: When picking paints for water color you want to begin with a warm and cool version of each primary color. (a warm blue, a cool blue, a warm red, a cool red, warm yellow, cool yellow).
Choosing a warm color by a cool color will give you a slight grey affect which is nice when you are painting something that isn’t a super vibrant color. If you’d like to go for that slightly muted, grey tone all over your painting, you should attempt to have a little of each primary color in every part of your painting. For example, if you paint something with a cool yellow (a yellow with a tiny bit of blue in it) you should a bit of red by it.
Creating Depth and Interest: Choose warm and dark colors with lots of light/dark contrast for the focal point of your painting, use light tones of cool colors with very little light/dark contrast for your background.
Creating Value: If you want to show something, you must also show its opposite. For example, to show a stream of light, you must also show a shadow or darkness. To show texture, you must also show a smooth surface.