Painting with Carol

This is a big subject to tackle. I could write pages and pages about it. But if you are anything like me, you can only take in a little information at a time. If I am faced with pages of information I don’t read it properly. I wonder if this means I only use the artistic side of my brain?

Anyway I have decided that I will write a little at a time as required for the projects we do together. There is a basic vocabulary used when talking about colour and when I first started to paint, I found it difficult to know one from the other. Every colour has three characteristics:

• Hue
• Value
• Intensity

If you attend a class or a workshop you will hear your teacher speak of “hue” - this simply means it is the name of the colour. It allows us to distinguish one colour from another.

“Value” is the most important of the three. It simply means the lightness or darkness of a colour - however, if the value of the colour is wrong then the colour is wrong.

“Intensity” just means the brightness of the colour as it comes freshly from the tube; mix any other colour with it and you change it’s intensity. Brilliant Red has a high intensity value, for example, but if you were to add a touch of green to the red it would make it less intense. You can lighten the hue of watercolours by just adding water. I have tried to simplify it as much as I can but if at any stage you are unable to understand what I write, please don’t hesitate in asking me. If you’re wondering about something, it’s a safe bet others are too - and it will also be a help to me.

Colour may seem to be a difficult subject but I have found the more you paint and mix your own colours the more fun it can be. You will find the best thing about painting is playing and learning about it. I have reached the stage now after so many years of painting where I can look across a field and I feel confident enough to know I can mix any colour to suit the colours in the grasses, trees, or anything else needed for a painting. Of course, that only comes with experience and practice. I will go more in to colour as it is required.