Series 32: UNRAVELING INTENSITY

Enhancing Neutral Colors – S32L1 Download

 This lesson is S3L4, Enhancing Neutral Colrs of the UNRAVELING INTENSITY Series.   Using as her subject a mountain river in the winter, Dianne shows how we can add life to a drab colors without losing the character of the scene by adding variations of saturation those neutral colors.

Intensity, also called chroma, is the degree of saturation of a hue.   Every hue has the potential to exist in at least six degrees of saturation before becoming totally neutral.  Add to this that each of these has the potential for at least eight degrees of value.  Knowing how to create these can give an abundance of freedom to create when painting.

This series addresses how we can unravel that potential.

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 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.