Blondheim Art Original Paintings

Berries
10x10
oil on paper

See my paintings HERE

Art Notes Blog HERE


Painters Tip

Using a color wheel

I'm a big color wheel fan. I don't like the boring method of doing rows and rows of swatches. I like the practical study of color, doing small paintings with various color combinations. These paintings give you a real look at color and how it can be used successfully.

Keeping your color wheel handy will allow you to decide on intensity as well. Check your mixed color against the color on the wheel. If it is duller then you will know it is less intense than the tube color. Rarely does nature have the exact color that you get from the tube. it will not usually have that intensity. Using the wheel to help you make adjustments is the easy way to decide how bright or dull you need to mix the hues you are using.

The wheel will also give you lots of possibilities and help you to harmonize your color scheme for paintings. You can avoid a lot of bad color combinations if you rely more on the color wheel to help you make these important choices.

The new palette I am using for my work was developed over a period of months, experimenting with small paintings and using my color wheel.

I use a Rectangle (tetradic) color scheme. The rectangle or tetradic color scheme uses four colors arranged into two complementary pairs. This color scheme offers a lot of possibilities for variation.
Tetradic color schemes works best if you let one color be dominant.You should also pay attention to the balance between warm and cool colors in your design. Basically what I do is make either blue or green dominate, with red and orange compliments making up the neutrals. It's working very well for me.