Series 30: APPLYING COLOR SCHEMES

Cool-Warm Complements – S30L1

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This lesson is S30L1, Cool-Warm Complements of the APPLYING COLOR SCHEMES Series.  Using as her reference a creek bank, Dianne shows how we can give a new color interpretation by using a set of complements.  By retaining the value structure and varying the intensities and temperatures of the complements blue and orange, she allows blue to reinterpret cool local hues and orange to reinterpret warmer hues.

When French Impressionist Claude Monet did multiple studies of a single scene, he was interpreting rather than describing what he saw.  Often to enhance his impressions, he would transpose the local color into a color scheme. A color scheme is a limited set of colors with a relationship found on the color wheel.  Like Monet, these four lessons each use a different color interpretations for the same scene.

 Rather than becoming refined paintings, all these lessons are studies, each showing a different approach for using color schemes.  Dianne’s approach to teaching is to show you ways to think about making choices and decisions so that you can work these into your own unique approach to painting.

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With every brushstroke we make, we are composing.  Just as with any creation, we begin with a structure, then as the art work begins we place shapes and colors according the concept with which we are working.  But the time comes when we move to a different level of thinking and decision-making–that moment when our intention becomes to bring clarity and resolution to the work.

Among Dianne’s passions about painting and teaching painting is how composing principles can expand creative freedom if the artist transcends the “rule” idea and instead, transforms the principle into a tool that opens creative doors.

Read Dianne’s Compose blog posts HERE.  Visit Dianne’s website and example her work HERE.  And visit her YouTube Channel with dozens of Quick Tips HERE.