Take the Quiz

Here's a little art quiz for you. How are these two paintings alike? There are ten points possible. You get points for each correct guess, so think of several ways that they are alike.

Treble Clef

Untitled (so far) Suggestions?

Here are some of the answers I thought of and how many points you get for each.

Someone said, "What do you get if you win?"

Glory. That's always worth something.

If you said:

They are both by Lyndel Littleton you get 1 pt for guessing something probably obvious (since it is my art blog).

They are both beautiful - 2 pts for brown nosing and also being correct. :)

They are both abstract - only 1 pt for guessing something reallly obvious.

They are both painted with acrylic paint - 2 pts since the top one looks like it could be water color.

They are both painted with brushes - you lose 2 pts. The bottom one was painted with a pallete knife.

They are both in Lyndel's Etsy shop www.bearhollowcreations.etsy.com - zero points. They aren't there now but will probably end up there.

They were painted with the same paints - 4 pts! Good call. Here are the paints I used for both paintings. Go back and look again. Cool, huh? You can spend a ton of money buying all kinds of tubes of paint to get lots of different colors, or you can just get the basic primary colors plus white and mix your own!

Basics by Liquitex - Cadmium Red Deep Hue, Cobalt Blue Hue, Cadmium Yellow Medium Hue, Hooker's Green Hue Permanent, and Titanium White. I really like this paint. It's nice and thick and creamy and mixes beautifully.

Now go to the poll over there on the side and enter how many points you got. You can leave a comment if you want to share your opinion about the quiz or the answers and points. You may have thought of something else and want to get credit.

Things I Learned from Barney - Mixing Colors

My grandchildren love to watch Barney the Dinosaur. Barney and the children sing lots of songs and in the process learn a lot of really cool things. My 2 1/2 year old granddaughter - because of Barney - knows that when you mix blue and yellow you get green.

Sing this to the tune of If You're Happy and You Know It, Clap Your Hands

If you mix blue and yellow you get green.

If you mix blue and yellow you get green.

When you mix the two you'll see

A new color magically.

If you mix blue and yellow you get green.

Then there are verses about red and yellow, and blue and red.

This - mixing colors -is something that I found to be a lot of fun. And it has saved me a lot of money.

I just recently bought some acrylic paint. I had only painted with oil and watercolor before this. I bought some good quality paints and therefore couldn't buy a lot of colors and still fill my car up with gas. So I bought these Liquitex paints:

Cadmium Red Deep Hue, Cobalt Blue Hue, Cadmium Yellow Medium Hue, Hooker's Green Hue Permanent, and Titanium White. I really like this paint. It's nice and thick and creamy and mixes beautifully.

I'll write more later about exactly how to mix tons of colors and shades, (right now I need to get to work) but I wanted you to see these ACEOs. All of the colors you see on these four little paintings were made with the five colors you see above.

So let me encourage you - if you're just starting out - to buy a few colors of paint (primary colors and white) and learn to mix your own colors. You'll understand more about color and save money in the process!

Better Blacks

Better black? "Black is black" I suppose many would say. "And besides, a tube of black paint came in the set of paints I bought."

It's true, black right out of the tube is definitely black, but you'll find that a mixed black gives a beautiful depth and is much more interesting to the eye.

The easiest way to mix black is to take two colors opposite each other on the color wheel and mix them together: green/red, blue/orange, purple/yellow. As you mix, you may first get a shade of brown. That's how I mixed brown for my violin painting http://bearhollowcreations.blogspot.com/2008/09/mixing-brown.html But you'll notice on that painting that there are parts of the body of the violin that are dark and could become black with a little more of the blue added.

In this painting I used my favorite color combination for making black - red and green. I used alizarin crimson and veridian. Actually, I first painted the entire canvas with inexpensive black acrylic. This way I didn't have to worry about any white shining through the background. I then painted the entire background with liquin paint thinner. The liquin allowed me to cover all the background quickly and without using a lot of thick paint. (I wanted the calla lilies to be thick and didn't want them to have to compete with the texture of the background.)

I took my red and green and barely mixed them. I didn't want to lose all of the red or green. Using a criss-cross painting motion, I painted the background with my red/green mix. I don't think you can tell from this photograph, but the red and green can be seen here and there in the background. That's what gives the background some interest and some depth. I think I threw in a little blue here and there too. Not that you really see it, but I really love blue and think everything should have at least a little touch of blue.

So the next time your piece calls for black, see if a mixed black will do the job. You'll be very pleased with the results.

Mixing Brown

When I painted this painting of my violin I had to experiment quite a bit to find the correct color of brown. I wanted the painting to be very close - if not exact - to the real color of the wood.

Now I've seen many fun paintings of violins in purple or blue or whatever, but for this piece I wanted the real wood color. Violins come in many shades of brown. For that matter, brown comes in many colors. Is that the right word? (shades?, tints?, hues?) You know... some browns have gold in them, some have red or yellow or blue.

My first try was just to take some burnt umber and lighten it a bit. Yuck. So I tried burnt umber with yellow, burnt sienna with blue, lots of different combinations.

The color combination that I had the most success with in mixing a nice brown - and especially a golden brown like my violin - didn't have anything burnt in it. It was orange and blue! This makes sense since they are across from each other on the color wheel. Another combination across from each other are red and green make a nice dark brown that's almost black. When you combine colors that are across from each other on the wheel you are adding together all the colors. This combining of all the colors makes black or brown.

For my violin I started out with orange right out of the tube (I didn't mix my own orange). I then added different blues and even some purples to create the exact brown of my violin. It's been awhile, so I can't tell you exactly which blues I used in the end. I'm thinking it was phthalo blue and cobalt blue and then some purple and more orange for some of the darker areas.
You'll want to experiment to find which combination works for the particular brown you are trying to achieve, but beginning with colors across from each other on the color wheel will give you a great beginning place.

Here is the painting hanging in my office over an antique pump organ.

My Violin

I really enjoyed painting this. The hardest part for me was getting the color of the violin. I tried many different ways to get brown using raw umber, burnt umber, burnt sienna and raw sienna and I tried adding other colors to those colors, but nothing looked right. I wanted the color that my violin is, not just some brown. I ended up using orange and blue! and the darker parts are orange and purple. for those of you new to mixing colors, when you use two colors that are oppostie each other on the color wheel you get brown or black, so it makes sense that I could get a brown color this way. I love the way it turned out. I've had many very nice compliments from people on flickr. You can read them here if you are interested.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bearhollowcreations/367513867/in/set-72157594427085595/

I thought you might like to see how the painting looked in progress.