I make the best fucking posts ever.

until i watched a tiny tip video of an oil painter just going like "oh and this is how impressionist painters did this trick with color".....and then it dawned on me. In the last thousands of years that people have been painting with very limited resources. the SAME very limited resources that eventually build a framework for color theory + social color symbolism and shit. from there i've made myself a study guide thats kinda helped me learn color.

the study guide itself is very easy. take a group of paintings from a similar artist or a specific time period and color pick the hell out of it. WITH PURPOSE. color pick the brightest/medium/dark of an object and lay them next to each other in a blank canvas. look at where they fall in the color wheel. compare where every highlight falls vs where every shadow. see how certain colors feel when laid next to each other and move them around next to other.

i usually use the colors i picked from the paintings as a jumping off point. cause from there theres just colors/combinations i gravitate towards so it'll gradually morph into ME + also colors i want to use that are nowhere in the piece and i have to figure out how to add.

of course my main inspiration is impressionist painting. but im gonna be honest man breaking down whats happening in there......its not hard its just a LOT to have to break down. to a point where i wouldnt know where to start. u want how i pick my base colors? how i balance hues? how to texture?

which i mean i wouldnt mind answering any of these but i guess its like. what do you want to get out of it?

like do you want to learn impressionism specifically or do u want a framework that helps you break down any art/color themes so u can understand it?

Im gonna use the later cause i do think it might be a little more benifical if youre just staring out.

SO im gonna start with a color pallete i dont tend to use so often but great way to to learn some basic color harmony and greys.

MY LABRU:

the goal with this one is to have an classical 16th century color feel. Here are my refs:

(peter paul rubens specifially cause i love how fleshy everyone feels)

Things to note about this time period: vibrant colors are extremely expensive especially blue. a lot of classical paintings are majority brown/yellow/orange cause thats whats cheap. depending on what your commissioner wants or what you can get your hands on youre gonna want to make your expensive paints last. painters would use mediums to make a color last longer or use a brown/grey. (my favorite tidbit is that apparently instead of using green some artist would just add white to their black and because of what black use to be made out of it would tint into a greyish green)

But things that i found easier to break down when studying this period because of this:

Color harmony. Every color in these paintings are gonna have a brown/orange tint. Your brain loves that. it feels like every color is related and talking each other. then u drop that sweet sweet vibrant red or blue (but not too much cause it'll cost you). your brain goes :O to the sudden outlier. and u cant help but be drawn to these small specs because of it. and viola u also learn about that 70%-30% ratio or whatever.

greys. i dont remember what exactly this is rule is called in color theory but its basically. the more you add grey to a color the more your brain starts to see it as it tinting to the complimentary color. so you like you add grey to orange/red, your brain starts to see green. and not just green but one that feels softer that doest draw too much attentions against your other reds. (and if u want to really go crazy. this means that greying a green makes it feel more red. so using THAT green-grey will get u a little more umph if you need it)

i cant color pick everything in this one cause it would be a mess but heres a few to show you just HOW MUCH grey is used in this piece.