- Lesson details
- Transcript
- Instructor
- Bill Perkins
- Subjects
- Painting
- Topics
- Light & Color
- Mediums
- Oil Paints
- Duration
- 4h 24m 9s
- Series
- Color Boot Camp
In this series, instructor Bill Perkins brings you his crash course on color theory and practice. This second lesson in the series will focus on saturation. Bill will begin with a brief lecture on how to identify saturation ranges within high and low key set-ups, and then it’s time to get to work: You will be shown a series of 4 different images throughout the lesson, each with a different color set-up, and you will have 30 minutes to complete a painting of each. Following each painting, you will see how Bill approaches the the same assignment, allowing you to compare your work with his.
Materials
- Sharpie Marker
- Gamblin Artists Grade Oil Paint
- Hogs Hair Bristle Brushes – Filberts
- Gamsol Oderless Mineral Spirits
- Silicoil Brush Cleaning Tank
- Palette Paper
- Canvas Panel
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AUTO SCROLL
Hi, my name is Bill Perkins. Welcome the second lesson of the color boot camp series. This
one is going to be about saturation. We’re going to do four painting. I’m going to
set up the model and the lighting in very specific situations so that you’re challenged
to alter your saturation range and the position of the color and your composition back to
back to back. Each painting will look extremely different, and it will be a really good challenge.
So, let’s get started.
one is going to be about saturation. We’re going to do four painting. I’m going to
set up the model and the lighting in very specific situations so that you’re challenged
to alter your saturation range and the position of the color and your composition back to
back to back. Each painting will look extremely different, and it will be a really good challenge.
So, let’s get started.
AUTO SCROLL
So, this segment we’re going to be talking about saturation. It’s demonstrated this way.
I want to put saturation here.
So, we’re talking about saturation. On your color wheel
saturation is measured along the radius. Here is neutral. Outside here is your full saturation.
And you know complementary colors will negate one another as they pass through center. What
is going to happen is—and complementary colors are measured across the diameter, where
saturation is measured along the radius, only the radius. It goes from gray to the full
saturated color. That’s what we’re going to be doing. We’re going to be working with
gray to a saturated color. We’re not going to be breaking down by using complementary hues.
We’re just going to be going from gray to saturated color. And so on this range it may look like this.
Okay, so we go from this neutral effect to fully saturated effect.
That’s what we’re going to explore today.
I’ve set these paintings up specifically, set the model up, and lit the model in a very
specific way, so what you’re going to be doing experiencing these different lighting
conditions and these different levels of saturation. We’re going to do the same thing that we
started out and implemented in our tone, but we’re going to be doing it with saturation
this time. This means that we begin at observing what the larger proportion or major key.
Again, your major key for saturation might be something like this.
Our painting might have something like this where you say it’s mostly saturated, and this
could be more neutral. It could be even that it’s either light or dark. The value is not significant in this situation.
With this situation we’re just looking at the intensity of the color, the intensity
or saturation we can talk about in the same, they mean the same thing.
Okay, so the intensity of the color from an intense to neutral or saturated to neutral.
We’re going to look at it in your major key.
This would be saturated.
On the other hand, you may have a situation where your painting maybe is mostly neutral and you only get a
small amount of saturation within your image. It might even be a moderate amount of kind
of in the middle or whatever. But, if you can see a strong distinction between your
most saturated area, I’ll make this a little bit more obvious.
Now, I have this range.
I have this subtle reds going into here into a full saturated red.
So, this would be low saturation.
Again, this is your major key.
We’re talking about the amount of saturation
within the overall image. Is it mostly saturated? Mostly neutral? And so on.
Now, our minor key is going to be the range of contrast. Contrast of what? If it’s contrast
of saturation, we’re going from here to here. So, your range of contrast is going
to be your minor key. You’ll hear me talk about your minor and your major key, and it
always breaks down the same way. The greater proportion is your major key, and the range
of contrast is your minor key.
If we have a high contrast in saturation we’d want to have very, very saturated and very,
very neutral. That range just like here from saturated to neutral, that’s the range of
our saturation. Okay, so that’s what we’re working on. We might have a minor key so that
there is not as much contrast between saturation. Maybe your painting is mostly neutral with
a little bit of saturation. We’re going to look at that as the major key and minor
key again. It’s going to be your range of contrast. This is a high amount of contrast,
and we can look at a low amount of contrast would be set up in a way that we might say…Okay,
so that would be a low range of contrast, a very low range of contrast.
This is minor key.
So, we have low contrast here. I could do another situation here. This would also
be low minor key. You see, what I’ve done here is I’ve given you a low range of contrast
from fully saturated to just moderately saturated within this little diagram, so this diagram
reflects a low contrast of saturation, as does this one. This is a low range of contrast
within saturation. This one is mostly saturated. This is mostly neutral, but we’re really
looking at the range of contrast. High contrast, low contrast, and low contrast.
Okay, so that’s why I want to clear up the idea that when we say a low minor key it means
dark. We’ve got to get over that tendency to believe that’s just what it is because
that’s our major key. We’ve got to keep those separate. We want to keep those things
really, really clear in how they’re going to work for you.
So, let’s get started on our first piece.
I want to put saturation here.
So, we’re talking about saturation. On your color wheel
saturation is measured along the radius. Here is neutral. Outside here is your full saturation.
And you know complementary colors will negate one another as they pass through center. What
is going to happen is—and complementary colors are measured across the diameter, where
saturation is measured along the radius, only the radius. It goes from gray to the full
saturated color. That’s what we’re going to be doing. We’re going to be working with
gray to a saturated color. We’re not going to be breaking down by using complementary hues.
We’re just going to be going from gray to saturated color. And so on this range it may look like this.
Okay, so we go from this neutral effect to fully saturated effect.
That’s what we’re going to explore today.
I’ve set these paintings up specifically, set the model up, and lit the model in a very
specific way, so what you’re going to be doing experiencing these different lighting
conditions and these different levels of saturation. We’re going to do the same thing that we
started out and implemented in our tone, but we’re going to be doing it with saturation
this time. This means that we begin at observing what the larger proportion or major key.
Again, your major key for saturation might be something like this.
Our painting might have something like this where you say it’s mostly saturated, and this
could be more neutral. It could be even that it’s either light or dark. The value is not significant in this situation.
With this situation we’re just looking at the intensity of the color, the intensity
or saturation we can talk about in the same, they mean the same thing.
Okay, so the intensity of the color from an intense to neutral or saturated to neutral.
We’re going to look at it in your major key.
This would be saturated.
On the other hand, you may have a situation where your painting maybe is mostly neutral and you only get a
small amount of saturation within your image. It might even be a moderate amount of kind
of in the middle or whatever. But, if you can see a strong distinction between your
most saturated area, I’ll make this a little bit more obvious.
Now, I have this range.
I have this subtle reds going into here into a full saturated red.
So, this would be low saturation.
Again, this is your major key.
We’re talking about the amount of saturation
within the overall image. Is it mostly saturated? Mostly neutral? And so on.
Now, our minor key is going to be the range of contrast. Contrast of what? If it’s contrast
of saturation, we’re going from here to here. So, your range of contrast is going
to be your minor key. You’ll hear me talk about your minor and your major key, and it
always breaks down the same way. The greater proportion is your major key, and the range
of contrast is your minor key.
If we have a high contrast in saturation we’d want to have very, very saturated and very,
very neutral. That range just like here from saturated to neutral, that’s the range of
our saturation. Okay, so that’s what we’re working on. We might have a minor key so that
there is not as much contrast between saturation. Maybe your painting is mostly neutral with
a little bit of saturation. We’re going to look at that as the major key and minor
key again. It’s going to be your range of contrast. This is a high amount of contrast,
and we can look at a low amount of contrast would be set up in a way that we might say…Okay,
so that would be a low range of contrast, a very low range of contrast.
This is minor key.
So, we have low contrast here. I could do another situation here. This would also
be low minor key. You see, what I’ve done here is I’ve given you a low range of contrast
from fully saturated to just moderately saturated within this little diagram, so this diagram
reflects a low contrast of saturation, as does this one. This is a low range of contrast
within saturation. This one is mostly saturated. This is mostly neutral, but we’re really
looking at the range of contrast. High contrast, low contrast, and low contrast.
Okay, so that’s why I want to clear up the idea that when we say a low minor key it means
dark. We’ve got to get over that tendency to believe that’s just what it is because
that’s our major key. We’ve got to keep those separate. We want to keep those things
really, really clear in how they’re going to work for you.
So, let’s get started on our first piece.
AUTO SCROLL
Now it’s time to start our painting. What I want you to do is set up a palette that has white, black,
cad yellow light, raw sienna, napthol red, and quinacridone red.
I’ve set up this model specifically to create a situation that is lower in saturation overall.
The greatest area of saturation is going to be on her skin, so look for that. The background is very dark,
and she’s wearing a very light garment. Your area of greatest saturation and range of saturation is going
to be her skin. If you feel more confident in drawing or sketching the model first, do that; that’s fine.
Don’t get too carried away with your drawing. I want you to get in. This is about color and putting the proper
notes of color next to one another. It’s not a finished painting, so don’t worry about that. It’s not a portrait so
don’t worry about that. We just want you to focus on the color saturation. Let’s get started.
cad yellow light, raw sienna, napthol red, and quinacridone red.
I’ve set up this model specifically to create a situation that is lower in saturation overall.
The greatest area of saturation is going to be on her skin, so look for that. The background is very dark,
and she’s wearing a very light garment. Your area of greatest saturation and range of saturation is going
to be her skin. If you feel more confident in drawing or sketching the model first, do that; that’s fine.
Don’t get too carried away with your drawing. I want you to get in. This is about color and putting the proper
notes of color next to one another. It’s not a finished painting, so don’t worry about that. It’s not a portrait so
don’t worry about that. We just want you to focus on the color saturation. Let’s get started.
AUTO SCROLL
Okay, now I’m going to try the same thing, and I’m going to do it from the same image,
same setup. So, follow along as I go through in my 30 minutes. Okay, so I’ve done my
sketch. I’ve laid that in. It’s going to be rough. This isn’t a portrait. This
is just our color exercise. I’m not really concerned with getting the most accurate drawing
or getting all the architecture in. I want to get those major spots so that I can start
exploring the color. This is the color that I put. Of course, I have the white and black.
Then I have two yellows and two reds. The difference here with the yellows is that I
have a cadmium yellow light. Right out of the tube it’s very light in value. You can
see raw sienna is very dark in value or medium to dark in value coming right out of the tube.
If I want to mix with the darker value yellow, of course, I’m going to mix into this. If
I’m going to mix with the lighter value yellow, I’m going to mix into this. You
can also see this as just slightly warmer than this as well. The reds, on the other
hand, I have a warm red a cool red. The warm red has a little bit more orange or it’s
a naphthol red and it’s kind of a medium red. Then this is a quinacridone red. This
is a cooler red. Some people might use another type of a cool red. I know some people use—Sargent
used alizarin crimson, I believe. Different artists use different types of reds in here.
But, I use these so I can get a good color temperature difference within that limited
range of saturation as well.
So, like I did with the tone, I’m going to start with my darkest darks, which are
going to be with the background here. We’ll start with something like this.
In my background, it’s going to be a little bit of this because I don’t want it to be just black, black.
If I want to mix, I’m going to mix into the values a little bit.
I’m going to play with these saturations. I’m going to go ahead and let this be very, very neutral.
I’m not putting any other hue. Not red, no yellow into this just because I want to
have a full range of saturation. That’s pretty much it. You might find that with your
paintings as you’re painting from life or whatever that the background might have some
range of saturation in it. It might favor one hue, either warm or cool. But in this
situation, since we’re just dealing with saturation. I want to get, for instance, her
hair a little bit warmer than the background and so we’ll play this a little bit more
neutral and work the saturation off of that. That way we’ll be able to see it a little bit better.
I’m going to block that in kind of thin, just get in roughed in there.
Now, I’ve broken this into these areas, and I’m looking for the saturation levels
in here. Outside of the background being very neutral, I can see her hair has got a little
bit more saturation in it, but it’s still very dark. I’m going to get some warmth
into it here, and a little bit of warmth in it there. You can see I’m starting to get
really saturated pretty quick, so I’m going to drop that back and lighten it up a little bit.
I’ll need to bring a little bit more warm into it if I’m going to do that.
Much more yellow.
I’ll try to keep things organized on my palette a little bit as I go, too. I’m just
going to put in a section here to suggest her hair.
Okay, so before I start working
into this area too much I’m getting kind of this middle tone of this section of her
hair. There are areas that are going to be a bit lighter. It might go lighter here with this.
It’s a little cooler so I can make this area a little bit cooler, too, see. That
what I’m using this black and white with my little bit lighter, cooler gray. That will
be cooler than this warmer gray here. A warmer neutral tone.
Now, the most saturated area in this painting is going to be her skin. She has a light top
and a dark background. I’m measuring that out because I’m looking at both my values
and my range of saturation. This is the most saturated area in here. I’m going to look
for the medium hue that I’m going to see that it prevails over her face and her skin.
I see there are different regions here, you know, her cheeks and nose and stuff in here
gets a little bit warmer than the others, and it feels a little bit more saturated.
It gives that appearance.
Now, you can see that this is my darker region of her hair, so I know I’m going to have
to mix her skin in a lighter zone. I might start with something up in here, and I know
it’s going to be a little bit more neutral. This will make it a little bit greener when
I add this gray to it.
Okay, so you can see the value difference that I’m getting in here. Might look for
something like this that might be in an area in the mid range in here.
Now, again, I’m going to come back into these areas. I’m going to address little subtleties in here.
I want to get the biggest, simple area of color in here that I can to begin with.
This is where I see most of this hue. From here I’m going to get a little bit more red into
her cheeks and stuff. I’m going to warm up her cheeks just a little bit.
Actually, they go a little bit cooler. I’m going to try this. I’m going to add a little bit
of the cooler red. I can get a good color temperature difference. I can bring some of
that back into there. I think that’s pretty much where her cheeks are going to be in through
the mid region down in here. I’m going to bring that right across because I see that
kind of in her nose as well. Just bring it right across.
I’m going to see that it’s a little bit more neutral.
I’m going to get some yellow in here, but it’s going
to be a little bit more neutral down in the lower area around her mouth in here.
Got a little more red into that. I’m going to look for that level of saturation. This area
is a little less saturated than her cheeks.
I’m going to work that area in.
I can see down on her neck down in this area here it’s going to be a lot more yellow, so I’m going
shift my hue just a little bit. Get a little bit more yellow in here.
Then I'm going to get a little bit warmth back into this. I need a little bit more warmth in there.
There we go.
Then it’s much warmer in the middle here. Changing a little bit of the hue as I go through
here. I can change the saturation levels and even make it a little bit darker in the area here.
I don’t want to get into too much articulation with all this just yet. I’m
just going to move through this range. This is my bracket of saturation and hue. I’m
going from warm and cool, and I’m keeping it in a similar value range because it sits
in that same value range. I want to stay true to that. I’ll keep my groupings together.
I think it has a little bit more of a pink in some of the areas here. It definitely has
a little bit more along the edges. Her form turns to the back a little bit.
Okay, so I’ve got some subtle variations within this large mass, but this is the area
where I get my greatest saturation. I want to make sure that I’m getting that covered
in there. There are some areas here that get a little darkened. I’m going to make sure
that I get those in here along the edge.
Turns the planes just a little bit back here.
I also see in here there is a light area in here that’s a little bit yellower. I’m
going to move into this region. I see that in there underneath her clavicle. I can see
a little bit more yellow and a little bit whiter in there too.
I’ll go back into here and pick up the top of her clavicle over here too. I’m building
subtle ranges within this basic zone. I can build the form around or do whatever here.
I’ve let these darker areas. These dark areas, they’re going to be back in closer
to this zone in here. They are a little bit more saturated than some of this out here,
so I’m going to try to get a little bit more saturation back into these zones, but
keep them in this similar value for these areas in here. This set up, as you notice,
does not have strong lighting. It’s not strong Chiaroscuro. This is pretty much a
notan dominant painting. That’s why I’m kind of just playing that out.
I'm going to go a little bit more neutral here.
We get to the outside here.
You’ve got to keep it down in this value here for this area under her eye here.
Then oI’m going to lighten it back up and get back into here for this over the top of her
brow ridge or up towards the brow ridge. I want to make sure that I get her mouth in here too.
Her lower lip is cooler so I want to make sure that I get that in the right
value range in a cool. I’m going to cool it up even more. I may get this,
lighten that up a little bit more.
For her upper lip I’m going to get a little bit darker in here and
warmer and more saturated in there.
Her eyes are dark, but they are warm, so I’m going to get a dark warm in here.
You see, I’m just building this range of saturation because it’s against this gray or dark,
dark gray into this more saturated area. Now, what’s going to play off of these a little
bit more saturated areas are areas that are a little bit more neutral. Okay, so when I
look for areas that are a little bit more neutral, I might start off with something
a little bit grayer. It’s going to be a little bit in this darker region because I’m
going to get right by her jaw down in here. I can see that it’s a good amount
darker and grayer under here
as well as here.
Let me get a little bit more saturation back into this.
I see underneath her jaw here.
A little bit more saturation yet and a little bit lighter.
When I start to get into a region like this, a little too cool. Need to warm that up a little bit. I’ll
work with this a little bit darker.
Okay, now, under her lip it’s going to get a little bit less saturated and a good amount
darker. I want to make sure that it’s less saturated than the area around it, and it’s
a little bit darker. Then it’s going to get a little bit as we go on the plane of
the side there, this is going to change. It’s going to get a little bit lighter.
It's going to get a little bit pinker up in this area here. Same thing with the area over in
here. I’m going to lay in a little bit of the darker area around under her nose, which
is going to be about this value, but it’s going to need to be a little bit redder.
As I go into this zone, you’ll see it’s warmer around in her cheeks, and so forth, in this
area. This is going to also reflect that a little bit more as well. I’m going to get
in here with a little bit more dark saturated red in here, just a little bit under here.
There we go.
I can also see a little bit more of this saturated red, I see it in areas near her eyes in here.
Around here. And in her eyelids where there are folds and so on in her eyelids that bring
attention to these little bit darker zones in here. A little darker yet.
We get a little bit more of an accent in there. Also, in her ears too. We get a little bit dark on the bottom here.
But, her ears are pretty saturated back in here. But, they’re deep in there
so they’re going to be a little bit like this.
I might get a little bit lighter value
to bring those back out. I’m going to bring this a little lighter in here. Get a little
bit warmer in there. Not so super, super warm.
I’ll keep it like this to pull a little bit of her ear out.
Same with this over here. Now, this ear over here is a little bit different
because it gets a little bit lighter. I’m going to be working in this range. This is
a little bit too yellow, so I’m going to go back over in here. Get a little bit more
red into that. Cool it down a little bit. Lighten it and cool it a little bit. That’s
where we’re going to get this part of her ear here.
Now, around her cheeks and so on in here, I might need to get a little bit redder because
I see there is a little bit more red. I’m going to push the saturation just a little bit more.
Get that.
There we go. Just a little bit more saturation in there. A little bit
more saturation in the cheeks. There is a warmer, darker side to her nose.
It's going to follow along the side over here. I’m going to go back to her hair because I need
to get her hair overlapping her ear there. I’m going to go back to her hair in this
value and just kind of bring this back into the situation over here.
I might even be able to just get this.
Now, you can adjust your drawing as much as you have time, but don’t go over the thirty
minute. Again, this is really not about a rendering class, this is really about how
you’re managing and stretching your saturation, your range of saturation. I’ve focused on
this. I’m letting her arms go for the moment just so I can get the rest of this in.
I’m going to go back in and get a little bit more neutral, but a lighter value right
in here, somewhere in here because I can see her eyes are somewhere in here. They’re
really closer to her skin color, a little cooler version of her skin color than anything else.
Okay, now to frame this what I’m going to do is I’m going to put the white in here
to help frame this situation. I want to create a situation of where I have something extremely
neutral, much more saturated. Her shirt again is going to be pretty neutral. It’s close
to white but it’s kind of a cooler white so I’m going to add a little bit of the
black. It had a little bit of warm in it. That’s okay. I’m going to put this in here.
Okay, this area is a little bit cooler.
Get a good amount of paint on there. I’m
not getting a whole lot of paint on there. Get a little bit more paint in here.
Now, in order to make this pretty consistent—you see how these grays are these very, very light
white grays are a little bit on the warm side. As things start to go into the shadow they’re
going to get a little darker. And I also have a little bit of warmth on this that I put
in so it’s not just gray-gray. I keep this just a little bit warm in this situation.
This isn’t a standard. I’m looking and trying to do this as an observed painting.
I’m not looking and creating standard rules for anything. What I do see is the effect
of a little bit of cooler little accents on top. If it stays just a little bit warm that’s
fine. I’ll come back with some cooler accents. The only thing I want to do is I want to adjust
her nose a little bit. Her nose is a little cooler. It’s a little cooler than the rest
of her skin. That’s too light. Darken that up just a little bit. Take that off.
Now, what I could be doing here is—now I’m going to look for some of the darker, richer
accents and the highlights. I’ve laid in my base values, and I’m playing with my
saturation range. I can see that some of the highlights are going to go into a cool, so
I’m going to go a little lighter and cooler, which is just white. I’m lightening these
things up with this. I’m keeping this different. I’m mixed into this mixture but I’m keeping
this very different than her blouse. These are the two areas that are going to describe
the turn of her skull. Right along that edge, right along that edge there. I see also the
other turn over here as well. I’m going to get a little bit into there. Again, Above her brow ridge here.
As her skin turns, as her planes turn away I’m going to see that it’s a little bit yellower
and a little bit richer down in here so I can get a little more saturation in there.
I’m playing these against one another.
Bring this in slightly. This saturation, bring it
into her forehead. Just a little too red. Lighter accents on some of her cheeks and
stuff like that are going to be a little bit pinker, but they’re going to be in this
lighter—like I said before, we get this lighter, more neutral kind of an effect right
up in here. It’s cooler right in here too.
Same thing in here because lighting is pretty much ahead. We’re running out of time so
I want to get just the major areas here. So, I put a few of the lights on, and if I’m
going to go in and just bust out a couple of the darker accents, I might get some of
the areas of her hair. We might see this even a little darker.
This is the last little bit. I’m going to go ahead and drop in the last little bit.
It’s going to be some darker accents in here that are going to be pretty saturated
and pretty dark. I’m going to go really dark and really saturated. Get a little bit
more black in there to darker it up, but I want to make sure that I keep the saturation
up for some of these little areas down into her mouth.
Now, I know that if I go into these areas with just a dark it’s going to make her
face flat, where we go real dark on some of these accents. You’re going to have some
saturation into those zones as well. Same thing with her eyes. We need some dark, but
we need some saturation in there as well to kind of play that off. Now, I cooled off some
areas on her forehead. I cooled off a little bit on her nose and the front of her cheeks.
To keep the continuity, I’m going to cool off some of the white on her blouse as well,
just in the areas that are turning into this kind of a more cool region. I’m going to
get some of this, a little bit of this, and just get a little bit of the difference there.
Try to get a little bit more white. Make it a little bit lighter. There we go.
Just so we can get a little bit more temperature difference and range of saturation in here.
I’m going to neutralize this a little bit just because I want to get a little bit over
here on the front of her arm. You can see it’s a little bit greener so I’m going
to use this yellow and a little bit of the white, less of the raw sienna. This has more
red in it. This has less in it. You’ll see it’s a little bit more like that. Then as
we go to it outside of her arm where it’s going to get more sun and stuff, it’s going
to get a little bit warmer like this. Now, I painted this pretty thin, and I would normally
paint it just a little bit thicker, but with my palette standing up like this (I usually
have it down), but where it stands up I just don’t want them to all drip like this. Paint
thick. Paint direct. Lay in your areas from your neutral to your saturation and work in
those zones. Keep the highest the highest and then the most neutral the most neutral,
and work between those.
same setup. So, follow along as I go through in my 30 minutes. Okay, so I’ve done my
sketch. I’ve laid that in. It’s going to be rough. This isn’t a portrait. This
is just our color exercise. I’m not really concerned with getting the most accurate drawing
or getting all the architecture in. I want to get those major spots so that I can start
exploring the color. This is the color that I put. Of course, I have the white and black.
Then I have two yellows and two reds. The difference here with the yellows is that I
have a cadmium yellow light. Right out of the tube it’s very light in value. You can
see raw sienna is very dark in value or medium to dark in value coming right out of the tube.
If I want to mix with the darker value yellow, of course, I’m going to mix into this. If
I’m going to mix with the lighter value yellow, I’m going to mix into this. You
can also see this as just slightly warmer than this as well. The reds, on the other
hand, I have a warm red a cool red. The warm red has a little bit more orange or it’s
a naphthol red and it’s kind of a medium red. Then this is a quinacridone red. This
is a cooler red. Some people might use another type of a cool red. I know some people use—Sargent
used alizarin crimson, I believe. Different artists use different types of reds in here.
But, I use these so I can get a good color temperature difference within that limited
range of saturation as well.
So, like I did with the tone, I’m going to start with my darkest darks, which are
going to be with the background here. We’ll start with something like this.
In my background, it’s going to be a little bit of this because I don’t want it to be just black, black.
If I want to mix, I’m going to mix into the values a little bit.
I’m going to play with these saturations. I’m going to go ahead and let this be very, very neutral.
I’m not putting any other hue. Not red, no yellow into this just because I want to
have a full range of saturation. That’s pretty much it. You might find that with your
paintings as you’re painting from life or whatever that the background might have some
range of saturation in it. It might favor one hue, either warm or cool. But in this
situation, since we’re just dealing with saturation. I want to get, for instance, her
hair a little bit warmer than the background and so we’ll play this a little bit more
neutral and work the saturation off of that. That way we’ll be able to see it a little bit better.
I’m going to block that in kind of thin, just get in roughed in there.
Now, I’ve broken this into these areas, and I’m looking for the saturation levels
in here. Outside of the background being very neutral, I can see her hair has got a little
bit more saturation in it, but it’s still very dark. I’m going to get some warmth
into it here, and a little bit of warmth in it there. You can see I’m starting to get
really saturated pretty quick, so I’m going to drop that back and lighten it up a little bit.
I’ll need to bring a little bit more warm into it if I’m going to do that.
Much more yellow.
I’ll try to keep things organized on my palette a little bit as I go, too. I’m just
going to put in a section here to suggest her hair.
Okay, so before I start working
into this area too much I’m getting kind of this middle tone of this section of her
hair. There are areas that are going to be a bit lighter. It might go lighter here with this.
It’s a little cooler so I can make this area a little bit cooler, too, see. That
what I’m using this black and white with my little bit lighter, cooler gray. That will
be cooler than this warmer gray here. A warmer neutral tone.
Now, the most saturated area in this painting is going to be her skin. She has a light top
and a dark background. I’m measuring that out because I’m looking at both my values
and my range of saturation. This is the most saturated area in here. I’m going to look
for the medium hue that I’m going to see that it prevails over her face and her skin.
I see there are different regions here, you know, her cheeks and nose and stuff in here
gets a little bit warmer than the others, and it feels a little bit more saturated.
It gives that appearance.
Now, you can see that this is my darker region of her hair, so I know I’m going to have
to mix her skin in a lighter zone. I might start with something up in here, and I know
it’s going to be a little bit more neutral. This will make it a little bit greener when
I add this gray to it.
Okay, so you can see the value difference that I’m getting in here. Might look for
something like this that might be in an area in the mid range in here.
Now, again, I’m going to come back into these areas. I’m going to address little subtleties in here.
I want to get the biggest, simple area of color in here that I can to begin with.
This is where I see most of this hue. From here I’m going to get a little bit more red into
her cheeks and stuff. I’m going to warm up her cheeks just a little bit.
Actually, they go a little bit cooler. I’m going to try this. I’m going to add a little bit
of the cooler red. I can get a good color temperature difference. I can bring some of
that back into there. I think that’s pretty much where her cheeks are going to be in through
the mid region down in here. I’m going to bring that right across because I see that
kind of in her nose as well. Just bring it right across.
I’m going to see that it’s a little bit more neutral.
I’m going to get some yellow in here, but it’s going
to be a little bit more neutral down in the lower area around her mouth in here.
Got a little more red into that. I’m going to look for that level of saturation. This area
is a little less saturated than her cheeks.
I’m going to work that area in.
I can see down on her neck down in this area here it’s going to be a lot more yellow, so I’m going
shift my hue just a little bit. Get a little bit more yellow in here.
Then I'm going to get a little bit warmth back into this. I need a little bit more warmth in there.
There we go.
Then it’s much warmer in the middle here. Changing a little bit of the hue as I go through
here. I can change the saturation levels and even make it a little bit darker in the area here.
I don’t want to get into too much articulation with all this just yet. I’m
just going to move through this range. This is my bracket of saturation and hue. I’m
going from warm and cool, and I’m keeping it in a similar value range because it sits
in that same value range. I want to stay true to that. I’ll keep my groupings together.
I think it has a little bit more of a pink in some of the areas here. It definitely has
a little bit more along the edges. Her form turns to the back a little bit.
Okay, so I’ve got some subtle variations within this large mass, but this is the area
where I get my greatest saturation. I want to make sure that I’m getting that covered
in there. There are some areas here that get a little darkened. I’m going to make sure
that I get those in here along the edge.
Turns the planes just a little bit back here.
I also see in here there is a light area in here that’s a little bit yellower. I’m
going to move into this region. I see that in there underneath her clavicle. I can see
a little bit more yellow and a little bit whiter in there too.
I’ll go back into here and pick up the top of her clavicle over here too. I’m building
subtle ranges within this basic zone. I can build the form around or do whatever here.
I’ve let these darker areas. These dark areas, they’re going to be back in closer
to this zone in here. They are a little bit more saturated than some of this out here,
so I’m going to try to get a little bit more saturation back into these zones, but
keep them in this similar value for these areas in here. This set up, as you notice,
does not have strong lighting. It’s not strong Chiaroscuro. This is pretty much a
notan dominant painting. That’s why I’m kind of just playing that out.
I'm going to go a little bit more neutral here.
We get to the outside here.
You’ve got to keep it down in this value here for this area under her eye here.
Then oI’m going to lighten it back up and get back into here for this over the top of her
brow ridge or up towards the brow ridge. I want to make sure that I get her mouth in here too.
Her lower lip is cooler so I want to make sure that I get that in the right
value range in a cool. I’m going to cool it up even more. I may get this,
lighten that up a little bit more.
For her upper lip I’m going to get a little bit darker in here and
warmer and more saturated in there.
Her eyes are dark, but they are warm, so I’m going to get a dark warm in here.
You see, I’m just building this range of saturation because it’s against this gray or dark,
dark gray into this more saturated area. Now, what’s going to play off of these a little
bit more saturated areas are areas that are a little bit more neutral. Okay, so when I
look for areas that are a little bit more neutral, I might start off with something
a little bit grayer. It’s going to be a little bit in this darker region because I’m
going to get right by her jaw down in here. I can see that it’s a good amount
darker and grayer under here
as well as here.
Let me get a little bit more saturation back into this.
I see underneath her jaw here.
A little bit more saturation yet and a little bit lighter.
When I start to get into a region like this, a little too cool. Need to warm that up a little bit. I’ll
work with this a little bit darker.
Okay, now, under her lip it’s going to get a little bit less saturated and a good amount
darker. I want to make sure that it’s less saturated than the area around it, and it’s
a little bit darker. Then it’s going to get a little bit as we go on the plane of
the side there, this is going to change. It’s going to get a little bit lighter.
It's going to get a little bit pinker up in this area here. Same thing with the area over in
here. I’m going to lay in a little bit of the darker area around under her nose, which
is going to be about this value, but it’s going to need to be a little bit redder.
As I go into this zone, you’ll see it’s warmer around in her cheeks, and so forth, in this
area. This is going to also reflect that a little bit more as well. I’m going to get
in here with a little bit more dark saturated red in here, just a little bit under here.
There we go.
I can also see a little bit more of this saturated red, I see it in areas near her eyes in here.
Around here. And in her eyelids where there are folds and so on in her eyelids that bring
attention to these little bit darker zones in here. A little darker yet.
We get a little bit more of an accent in there. Also, in her ears too. We get a little bit dark on the bottom here.
But, her ears are pretty saturated back in here. But, they’re deep in there
so they’re going to be a little bit like this.
I might get a little bit lighter value
to bring those back out. I’m going to bring this a little lighter in here. Get a little
bit warmer in there. Not so super, super warm.
I’ll keep it like this to pull a little bit of her ear out.
Same with this over here. Now, this ear over here is a little bit different
because it gets a little bit lighter. I’m going to be working in this range. This is
a little bit too yellow, so I’m going to go back over in here. Get a little bit more
red into that. Cool it down a little bit. Lighten it and cool it a little bit. That’s
where we’re going to get this part of her ear here.
Now, around her cheeks and so on in here, I might need to get a little bit redder because
I see there is a little bit more red. I’m going to push the saturation just a little bit more.
Get that.
There we go. Just a little bit more saturation in there. A little bit
more saturation in the cheeks. There is a warmer, darker side to her nose.
It's going to follow along the side over here. I’m going to go back to her hair because I need
to get her hair overlapping her ear there. I’m going to go back to her hair in this
value and just kind of bring this back into the situation over here.
I might even be able to just get this.
Now, you can adjust your drawing as much as you have time, but don’t go over the thirty
minute. Again, this is really not about a rendering class, this is really about how
you’re managing and stretching your saturation, your range of saturation. I’ve focused on
this. I’m letting her arms go for the moment just so I can get the rest of this in.
I’m going to go back in and get a little bit more neutral, but a lighter value right
in here, somewhere in here because I can see her eyes are somewhere in here. They’re
really closer to her skin color, a little cooler version of her skin color than anything else.
Okay, now to frame this what I’m going to do is I’m going to put the white in here
to help frame this situation. I want to create a situation of where I have something extremely
neutral, much more saturated. Her shirt again is going to be pretty neutral. It’s close
to white but it’s kind of a cooler white so I’m going to add a little bit of the
black. It had a little bit of warm in it. That’s okay. I’m going to put this in here.
Okay, this area is a little bit cooler.
Get a good amount of paint on there. I’m
not getting a whole lot of paint on there. Get a little bit more paint in here.
Now, in order to make this pretty consistent—you see how these grays are these very, very light
white grays are a little bit on the warm side. As things start to go into the shadow they’re
going to get a little darker. And I also have a little bit of warmth on this that I put
in so it’s not just gray-gray. I keep this just a little bit warm in this situation.
This isn’t a standard. I’m looking and trying to do this as an observed painting.
I’m not looking and creating standard rules for anything. What I do see is the effect
of a little bit of cooler little accents on top. If it stays just a little bit warm that’s
fine. I’ll come back with some cooler accents. The only thing I want to do is I want to adjust
her nose a little bit. Her nose is a little cooler. It’s a little cooler than the rest
of her skin. That’s too light. Darken that up just a little bit. Take that off.
Now, what I could be doing here is—now I’m going to look for some of the darker, richer
accents and the highlights. I’ve laid in my base values, and I’m playing with my
saturation range. I can see that some of the highlights are going to go into a cool, so
I’m going to go a little lighter and cooler, which is just white. I’m lightening these
things up with this. I’m keeping this different. I’m mixed into this mixture but I’m keeping
this very different than her blouse. These are the two areas that are going to describe
the turn of her skull. Right along that edge, right along that edge there. I see also the
other turn over here as well. I’m going to get a little bit into there. Again, Above her brow ridge here.
As her skin turns, as her planes turn away I’m going to see that it’s a little bit yellower
and a little bit richer down in here so I can get a little more saturation in there.
I’m playing these against one another.
Bring this in slightly. This saturation, bring it
into her forehead. Just a little too red. Lighter accents on some of her cheeks and
stuff like that are going to be a little bit pinker, but they’re going to be in this
lighter—like I said before, we get this lighter, more neutral kind of an effect right
up in here. It’s cooler right in here too.
Same thing in here because lighting is pretty much ahead. We’re running out of time so
I want to get just the major areas here. So, I put a few of the lights on, and if I’m
going to go in and just bust out a couple of the darker accents, I might get some of
the areas of her hair. We might see this even a little darker.
This is the last little bit. I’m going to go ahead and drop in the last little bit.
It’s going to be some darker accents in here that are going to be pretty saturated
and pretty dark. I’m going to go really dark and really saturated. Get a little bit
more black in there to darker it up, but I want to make sure that I keep the saturation
up for some of these little areas down into her mouth.
Now, I know that if I go into these areas with just a dark it’s going to make her
face flat, where we go real dark on some of these accents. You’re going to have some
saturation into those zones as well. Same thing with her eyes. We need some dark, but
we need some saturation in there as well to kind of play that off. Now, I cooled off some
areas on her forehead. I cooled off a little bit on her nose and the front of her cheeks.
To keep the continuity, I’m going to cool off some of the white on her blouse as well,
just in the areas that are turning into this kind of a more cool region. I’m going to
get some of this, a little bit of this, and just get a little bit of the difference there.
Try to get a little bit more white. Make it a little bit lighter. There we go.
Just so we can get a little bit more temperature difference and range of saturation in here.
I’m going to neutralize this a little bit just because I want to get a little bit over
here on the front of her arm. You can see it’s a little bit greener so I’m going
to use this yellow and a little bit of the white, less of the raw sienna. This has more
red in it. This has less in it. You’ll see it’s a little bit more like that. Then as
we go to it outside of her arm where it’s going to get more sun and stuff, it’s going
to get a little bit warmer like this. Now, I painted this pretty thin, and I would normally
paint it just a little bit thicker, but with my palette standing up like this (I usually
have it down), but where it stands up I just don’t want them to all drip like this. Paint
thick. Paint direct. Lay in your areas from your neutral to your saturation and work in
those zones. Keep the highest the highest and then the most neutral the most neutral,
and work between those.
AUTO SCROLL
This second painting in this series is going to be set up quite differently from the first one.
In this situation, our model has a very saturated blouse.
The background is very neutral. It even goes to the appearance to the appearance of having some
greenish tones in it. That being said, I want you to look at the different areas. The background compared to
her shirt or blouse, compared to her hair, compared to her skin. But look for the areas and zones of greater
saturation and areas that are more neutral. Okay, let’s get going.
In this situation, our model has a very saturated blouse.
The background is very neutral. It even goes to the appearance to the appearance of having some
greenish tones in it. That being said, I want you to look at the different areas. The background compared to
her shirt or blouse, compared to her hair, compared to her skin. But look for the areas and zones of greater
saturation and areas that are more neutral. Okay, let’s get going.
AUTO SCROLL
Okay, I hope that one worked out, was a fun and challenging one. Now, it’s my turn.
I’m going to jump in and paint the same thing, and I’m going to time box it again
for 30 minutes. In this painting, our greatest area of saturation is going to be in here.
It’s a cool red. Our next area of greatest saturation is going to be up in here. Then
we’re going to have some saturation in the light. We’re going to have some saturation
in the shadow. The lights might be—depending on your monitor—the lights might be a little
bit washing this area out a little bit. It’s usually what happens with exposures. You either
expose for the light or expose for the shadow. This exposure is a nice exposure, but you’re
going to get a saturation along this area right in here. That’s going to be not just
the medium value, but it’s also the darker value in here. We’ll see saturation mostly
in that mid range. When we have to add too much white, we’re going to lose saturation.
We go too, too dark and we go to black, we’re going to lose saturation. But, in that mid
zone and the medium dark zone you’re going to see most of your saturation, which is going
to be in this area in here as far as the face goes.
Her blouse is definitely the most saturated area.
There is a little bit of a temperature difference in the background to her skin. You can see
that this is cooler. It’s neutral, but it’s a neutral with a little bit of greenish in it.
We can achieve that green by adding the black and white and a little bit of your cadmium
yellow light. You can see the difference between the cadmium yellow light and the raw sienna
if I mix some of the white and this. I’ll go ahead and mix a bunch because I’m going
to pain the background with it anyway. It’s a light background so I’m going to go in
here with this. If I add just a little bit of the yellow you can see it starts to look
a little greenish. And if I add a little bit more it’s going to get really green or really
yellow-green in here. It’s more than I want. But, the way out of that is I’m going to
dilute it with a little bit more of the gray, as you can see here.
I might say this is the value, the level of saturation I’m going to go with the background.
I’m going to drop a little bit of the background in.
I want to drop this in—it’s on the neutral side—but I want to drop this in back here
because I want to see what the colors of her skin are going to be like next to this.
Again, I’m just trying to get this in there very quick, and you should too. Try to get the
paint mixed and down. As quick as you can see it, you mix it and you put it in. There
is a little bit more of this mixed in here. But I also see—as I go out here, since the
light direction is coming from over here it feels like it’s getting a little bit cooler
and a little bit lighter. I’m going to mix a little bit of just the black into this.
I can get a little bit more of a color temperature in there, you see. The neutral actually looks
like it’s cooling it way down...
and giving us a little variant there. It’s a little
bit mostly gray, but you can see this cool to a little bit warmer over here. I can get
a little bit cool on this side here, too. It kind of penetrates across here. It’s
cooler and then gets warmer. That’s my neutralized background. The reason I keep the
warm/cool temperatures, two yellows and two reds, is so I can maintain this color temperature difference.
I think it’s really important to get a lot more depth and quality of light. There is
a mixing of warm and cool temperatures.
Now I’m going to drop my darks in around my dark matrix. Since I set this up with kind
of a little bit more greenish, I do see a little bit more greenish into the browns on
her hair, so I’m going to get a good amount of this to get it dark. If I have enough of
the cadmium yellow light it’s going to go a little greenish as well in here. I can see
this little bit in here. These are some of the lighter areas on her hair. Her hair goes
a little bit darker. I’m going to drop a couple of these things in because I’m still
going to work with my colors in my matrix, but I’m going to shift the hue slightly
as I go through, maybe getting a little warm and a little cool. A little bit warmer.
You see, if I’m using my darker warm yellow you can see the difference here. Similar value,
but this is a cool and a warm. I’m going to get some of it in here on this part of
her hair up here where I see warmer tones. It might be just a little bit of a warm in
here too so we get the difference there.
Now, where her hair is darker, much darker,
I want to get this darker tone in here.
I’m going to make this just a little bit more neutral over on this side than I did
over on this side, setting up a condition that’s going to become a little bit more
consistent. I have little cooler here, a little warmer here. This is a little cooler. This
is a little warmer. If you have cooler highlights this will be warmer in here. We’ll start
to see that condition happen once I start laying in these shadow shapes. I’m going
to look for a value that is going to match the local value of the shadows in here.
I'm going to go down just a little bit darker, a little darker yet.
I’m going to warm that up just a little bit.
Use a little bit more greenish down in here. I’m going to go ahead and put this in here.
Now, what I’ll do is I’ll go ahead and block it in the whole zone. It might be easier
this way for you to see this. I can put in the whole zone. We did this with our values,
and I can do the same thing with this, just so you can see how that works. Then what I’ll
do is I’ll start adjusting the color and the color temperature
into this darkened zone altogether.
This is another way to approach this.
But, if I lay in this dark zone here, I can see
on the other side of her face there are some darks over here as well, but those darks are
quite saturated. There are darker zones that are quite a bit saturated over here in here
ear. So, maybe it’s a similar value range, but it’s much more saturated over there.
A little warmer and lighter.
Okay, right now I’m looking to mix
a mixer for the value of her skin in light,
but I’m kind of skirting around these areas that are a little bit in
kind of a half-light, somewhere in here, that are a little bit more saturated, a little
bit warmer. I’m going to get a little bit more of that going on in here, and I’ll
drop those in some areas like this.
Areas like this.
And I’m going to start to see
this cool red has a real saturated effect, and I’m going to see that along here reflected
up from her blouse onto her chin, so I’m going to start to see that in there.
Okay, see, I went a little bit darker in here because over on this side
these areas over here, they need to be just
a little bit darker because they’re surrounded by dark. I can’t really use the same value
that I use over on this side, because if I did this would stand out. My painting would
go extremely flat because the surround, being darker, would just
exaggerate the brightness of that color.
Right now I want to get a little bit of the saturation on her cheek as it starts
to come in the light around here.
That’s at the edge of the light source.
Now, what I’m going to do is I’m going to go back and I’m going to stay in this
zone and I’m going to warm up some of those areas by shifting the hue just a little bit.
I can take and get a little bit of red into this and shift this up just a little bit.
I’m getting a little more saturation in her cheek.
I’m doing it in this value same as this value that I put down.
Same with the outside of her eye. Then next to her nose
I can see there is a darker area. This went real neutral. I’m going to back up here
just a little bit and get a little bit more saturated, but I’m going a little step darker
now because I want to make sure that I can get this darkened area in here, this occluded
area at the side of her nose there. If similar saturation exists in here at the corner of
her eye, and I’m going to go a little bit more saturated and dark in here to get some
of the area of the corner of her mouth in this area. Next to that I can see a much more
saturated area, a lighter much more saturated area just on the top of the side of her lip.
I might go really saturated in here just to turn that little shadowed area in there.
Then I’m going to go back and get a little bit darker as it goes over here. That needs to
be redder. There we go. That same red would work in the nostril there.
So, I’m working this zone, and I’m adjusting some of those temperatures and the saturation
level. Now, where it goes a little bit grayer I’m going to stay within this zone where
it goes a little bit grayer. I’m going to use some of this because I already mixed some
of this in. This will neutralize some of the red, but I’m going to mix this a little
bit grayer, and I’m going to see that along the side of her temple over here
it’s going to get a little bit grayer.
There we go.
Slightly lighter and a little bit grayer over there.
Okay, and a redder version of that as her cheek turns.
Let me make it a little bit more obvious. There we go. A little bit more obvious in there.
Now I can get her ear out here in this value.
I still reserve this for my most saturated area up here.
I can block that in pretty quick, use my more saturated
cooler reds in here. Actually, what I’ll do is I’ll go in and get this. The lighter
area here has this much cooler feeling to it.
The lighter, cool red is going to feel a little pinker.
This is almost full saturation with a white in here. It has the cool red,
the quinacridone red and some white in here. Where the light is shining in this direction
we’re going to see a little bit more of it going on those planes and along in here,
setting up for these slightly warmer shadow areas.
I’ll make it more cool in there so
I’m going to maintain the coolness of that. That’s a little too warm. Here we go. Maintain.
the coolness of this. When we get into some areas like this
we can start to see the color temperature difference change up in here.
I’m going to cool this off as we get a little
bit darker. I’m going to cool this down quite a bit. Darken that. Then I’m going
to use that to warm this a little bit. It’s too warm. Get it cool again. Here we go.
Now, where I’m going to go a little warm and dark now is in my darker recesses in here,
like under her collar here, under her collar in here. It’s a little bit, it’s the red
reflecting into the red, and so it might have a tendency to get a little bit more saturated
in there because it’s the same color reflecting into itself. Then I’m going to go back to
this color. This quinacridone, I just added a little bit of light to it to lighten it
up to there. Where it’s sitting alone if it’s a little bit darker and less white,
I’m going to add just a touch of the warm red, just so that we get a little bit of a
temperature difference. We’ll start to see the effect of that color temperature difference.
Start to pull out some of these little areas here.
Again, if I’m going to make it a little
bit darker, I’m remixing some of this little bit darker, warmer red. Let me get a little
bit darker, a little warmer. Get that in there.
I can start pulling out a little bit more form with this as well. Really, what I’m
doing is I’m dealing with my saturated area here. I’m dealing with my temperature difference.
Keeping this light and cool again. That’s a little bit too much.
So, now I’ve got my most saturated area in there, and I’ve got this balanced with
that most saturated area. The area, like we said, the area of her face in light is just
slightly less saturated than that zone in the shadow region there.
But what I’m going to do is I’ll go ahead and get some of these dark saturated areas like her eyes, drop those
in, cause I’ll be painting around those. I want to get at least a real dark effect
in there. As saturated as I can get at this real dark range it’s really going to be optimal.
A little cooler. Let me get this.
I can get this lightness of this correct.
We have kind of the white of her eye in here. I want to get that in there.
It’s much darker.
I’m going to go into a little bit darker on the other side here.
It’s actually quite a bit darker.
Okay, now I’m going to look for the general value of her skin in light. I need a little
bit more space. I’m going to carve myself out a little bit more space here.
We know this has to be a step lighter than everything else. Good step lighter. This is getting really
saturated. I’m going to neutralize that just a little bit.
I’m going to warm it up just a little bit. Warm it up a little bit more.
Lighten it a little bit. Cool it off.
Now, a little bit of the black is going to cool this off a little bit, you see? I can
cool that off a little bit in there. I’m getting a little bit of bleed from the paint
leftover, but I think it’s just enough to get these areas knocked in here. So, let’s
go ahead and put some of this in.
Now, from here it gets a little pinker. I’m going
to add a little bit more pink into some of these other zones that come in here and cross here.
down in here, even her cheeks. Start to go in there and a little bit warmer altogether
in her nose area. It’s a little bit darker. That’s what I’m going to get in here and
warmer. Darker and warmer is where I need to go. Darker and warmer. There we go.
Let me go back to this. Saturate that up just a little bit. I’m a little bit too light.
I’m a little bit too light, so I’m going to get back in here, and I’m going to see—like
I said, we’re going to get a little bit more saturation along some of these edges
too like that and like this up here. You see a little bit turning of the planes and stuff in there.
A little warmer yet. That really makes it warm, doesn’t it? I didn’t want
to go that much, so I’ll neutralize this out just a little bit.
That back a little bit, and we’ll get a little bit of the warmth on her chin.
Again, some of that is set up by the reflected light from her blouse, but in order to get
the reflected light on her blouse I’m going to go back to that color of her blouse, and
then I’m going to add a little bit of the skin color to it at that similar value in
there, and that’s where I might get a little bit of a little shock of that color, but it
needs to be much darker. It needs to be down in here. There we go.
That’s going to be her blouse reflected onto her lower jaw and neck. It’s cooler as it comes over here
because this is a darker shadow area right there.
The plane doesn’t face her blouse, so that’s why we see the difference there.
I’m going to lighten this up just a little bit. It does go a little bit lighter and a
little bit cooler over here because of the side over here. The same thing over/under
her eye here like that. It’s going to pick up there, but yet again, when we get down
onto the side of her nose it’s going to pick up a little bit more of this warmth that
we put on here purposely.
Okay, now I’m going to have to go—I’m running short on my time, so I’m going to
go in and make the last few strokes on here.
Little bit neutral but on the yellowish side.
That’s going to happen right in here.
This side of her nose there. Here. Here.
Then lighter and cooler...
right in here. Along the edge in here.
The corner of her eye right in here.
Along the outside plane here
and underneath here, too.
Her chin has a little bit more warmth in it overall.
Let me give you a little bit more of a warmth in there.
Actually, it’s just a little bit pinker. There we go. That’s better. When we do these zones like this, what
happens is we’ve clearly established the most saturated,
and then I get into these areas, and these are the areas where we’re playing clearly
less saturation relative to the overall painting.
These light cools that might just run along
her cheek in here. I’m going to get a little bit more saturation along her cheek, too.
I want to get a little bit more in here. A little bit darker. There we go. It’s a little
bit more like that. And I can even get a little bit on her cheek there played on the other
side of her cheek and her ear.
And where we went a little bit lighter here, I need to keep it a little darker, but I need to keep it a little bit on
that neutral side in that light area along here so that little bit that I put in before is warmer.
This could be a little lighter. That little bit that I put in could be a little bit redder.
Now you can see with just a couple accents I can finish this, and if you can get a couple of those little additions
in there that’s great. If not, just let it go at about 30.
Okay, there we go. So, we have this neutral with warm and cool temperature. Warm and cool temperature in
the background. The light value. The variations between warm and cool in here in a similar value,
and we get a lot of warm and cool in this value in here, keeping the saturation levels modest in here,
strongest in here, and lowest back in here.
I’m going to jump in and paint the same thing, and I’m going to time box it again
for 30 minutes. In this painting, our greatest area of saturation is going to be in here.
It’s a cool red. Our next area of greatest saturation is going to be up in here. Then
we’re going to have some saturation in the light. We’re going to have some saturation
in the shadow. The lights might be—depending on your monitor—the lights might be a little
bit washing this area out a little bit. It’s usually what happens with exposures. You either
expose for the light or expose for the shadow. This exposure is a nice exposure, but you’re
going to get a saturation along this area right in here. That’s going to be not just
the medium value, but it’s also the darker value in here. We’ll see saturation mostly
in that mid range. When we have to add too much white, we’re going to lose saturation.
We go too, too dark and we go to black, we’re going to lose saturation. But, in that mid
zone and the medium dark zone you’re going to see most of your saturation, which is going
to be in this area in here as far as the face goes.
Her blouse is definitely the most saturated area.
There is a little bit of a temperature difference in the background to her skin. You can see
that this is cooler. It’s neutral, but it’s a neutral with a little bit of greenish in it.
We can achieve that green by adding the black and white and a little bit of your cadmium
yellow light. You can see the difference between the cadmium yellow light and the raw sienna
if I mix some of the white and this. I’ll go ahead and mix a bunch because I’m going
to pain the background with it anyway. It’s a light background so I’m going to go in
here with this. If I add just a little bit of the yellow you can see it starts to look
a little greenish. And if I add a little bit more it’s going to get really green or really
yellow-green in here. It’s more than I want. But, the way out of that is I’m going to
dilute it with a little bit more of the gray, as you can see here.
I might say this is the value, the level of saturation I’m going to go with the background.
I’m going to drop a little bit of the background in.
I want to drop this in—it’s on the neutral side—but I want to drop this in back here
because I want to see what the colors of her skin are going to be like next to this.
Again, I’m just trying to get this in there very quick, and you should too. Try to get the
paint mixed and down. As quick as you can see it, you mix it and you put it in. There
is a little bit more of this mixed in here. But I also see—as I go out here, since the
light direction is coming from over here it feels like it’s getting a little bit cooler
and a little bit lighter. I’m going to mix a little bit of just the black into this.
I can get a little bit more of a color temperature in there, you see. The neutral actually looks
like it’s cooling it way down...
and giving us a little variant there. It’s a little
bit mostly gray, but you can see this cool to a little bit warmer over here. I can get
a little bit cool on this side here, too. It kind of penetrates across here. It’s
cooler and then gets warmer. That’s my neutralized background. The reason I keep the
warm/cool temperatures, two yellows and two reds, is so I can maintain this color temperature difference.
I think it’s really important to get a lot more depth and quality of light. There is
a mixing of warm and cool temperatures.
Now I’m going to drop my darks in around my dark matrix. Since I set this up with kind
of a little bit more greenish, I do see a little bit more greenish into the browns on
her hair, so I’m going to get a good amount of this to get it dark. If I have enough of
the cadmium yellow light it’s going to go a little greenish as well in here. I can see
this little bit in here. These are some of the lighter areas on her hair. Her hair goes
a little bit darker. I’m going to drop a couple of these things in because I’m still
going to work with my colors in my matrix, but I’m going to shift the hue slightly
as I go through, maybe getting a little warm and a little cool. A little bit warmer.
You see, if I’m using my darker warm yellow you can see the difference here. Similar value,
but this is a cool and a warm. I’m going to get some of it in here on this part of
her hair up here where I see warmer tones. It might be just a little bit of a warm in
here too so we get the difference there.
Now, where her hair is darker, much darker,
I want to get this darker tone in here.
I’m going to make this just a little bit more neutral over on this side than I did
over on this side, setting up a condition that’s going to become a little bit more
consistent. I have little cooler here, a little warmer here. This is a little cooler. This
is a little warmer. If you have cooler highlights this will be warmer in here. We’ll start
to see that condition happen once I start laying in these shadow shapes. I’m going
to look for a value that is going to match the local value of the shadows in here.
I'm going to go down just a little bit darker, a little darker yet.
I’m going to warm that up just a little bit.
Use a little bit more greenish down in here. I’m going to go ahead and put this in here.
Now, what I’ll do is I’ll go ahead and block it in the whole zone. It might be easier
this way for you to see this. I can put in the whole zone. We did this with our values,
and I can do the same thing with this, just so you can see how that works. Then what I’ll
do is I’ll start adjusting the color and the color temperature
into this darkened zone altogether.
This is another way to approach this.
But, if I lay in this dark zone here, I can see
on the other side of her face there are some darks over here as well, but those darks are
quite saturated. There are darker zones that are quite a bit saturated over here in here
ear. So, maybe it’s a similar value range, but it’s much more saturated over there.
A little warmer and lighter.
Okay, right now I’m looking to mix
a mixer for the value of her skin in light,
but I’m kind of skirting around these areas that are a little bit in
kind of a half-light, somewhere in here, that are a little bit more saturated, a little
bit warmer. I’m going to get a little bit more of that going on in here, and I’ll
drop those in some areas like this.
Areas like this.
And I’m going to start to see
this cool red has a real saturated effect, and I’m going to see that along here reflected
up from her blouse onto her chin, so I’m going to start to see that in there.
Okay, see, I went a little bit darker in here because over on this side
these areas over here, they need to be just
a little bit darker because they’re surrounded by dark. I can’t really use the same value
that I use over on this side, because if I did this would stand out. My painting would
go extremely flat because the surround, being darker, would just
exaggerate the brightness of that color.
Right now I want to get a little bit of the saturation on her cheek as it starts
to come in the light around here.
That’s at the edge of the light source.
Now, what I’m going to do is I’m going to go back and I’m going to stay in this
zone and I’m going to warm up some of those areas by shifting the hue just a little bit.
I can take and get a little bit of red into this and shift this up just a little bit.
I’m getting a little more saturation in her cheek.
I’m doing it in this value same as this value that I put down.
Same with the outside of her eye. Then next to her nose
I can see there is a darker area. This went real neutral. I’m going to back up here
just a little bit and get a little bit more saturated, but I’m going a little step darker
now because I want to make sure that I can get this darkened area in here, this occluded
area at the side of her nose there. If similar saturation exists in here at the corner of
her eye, and I’m going to go a little bit more saturated and dark in here to get some
of the area of the corner of her mouth in this area. Next to that I can see a much more
saturated area, a lighter much more saturated area just on the top of the side of her lip.
I might go really saturated in here just to turn that little shadowed area in there.
Then I’m going to go back and get a little bit darker as it goes over here. That needs to
be redder. There we go. That same red would work in the nostril there.
So, I’m working this zone, and I’m adjusting some of those temperatures and the saturation
level. Now, where it goes a little bit grayer I’m going to stay within this zone where
it goes a little bit grayer. I’m going to use some of this because I already mixed some
of this in. This will neutralize some of the red, but I’m going to mix this a little
bit grayer, and I’m going to see that along the side of her temple over here
it’s going to get a little bit grayer.
There we go.
Slightly lighter and a little bit grayer over there.
Okay, and a redder version of that as her cheek turns.
Let me make it a little bit more obvious. There we go. A little bit more obvious in there.
Now I can get her ear out here in this value.
I still reserve this for my most saturated area up here.
I can block that in pretty quick, use my more saturated
cooler reds in here. Actually, what I’ll do is I’ll go in and get this. The lighter
area here has this much cooler feeling to it.
The lighter, cool red is going to feel a little pinker.
This is almost full saturation with a white in here. It has the cool red,
the quinacridone red and some white in here. Where the light is shining in this direction
we’re going to see a little bit more of it going on those planes and along in here,
setting up for these slightly warmer shadow areas.
I’ll make it more cool in there so
I’m going to maintain the coolness of that. That’s a little too warm. Here we go. Maintain.
the coolness of this. When we get into some areas like this
we can start to see the color temperature difference change up in here.
I’m going to cool this off as we get a little
bit darker. I’m going to cool this down quite a bit. Darken that. Then I’m going
to use that to warm this a little bit. It’s too warm. Get it cool again. Here we go.
Now, where I’m going to go a little warm and dark now is in my darker recesses in here,
like under her collar here, under her collar in here. It’s a little bit, it’s the red
reflecting into the red, and so it might have a tendency to get a little bit more saturated
in there because it’s the same color reflecting into itself. Then I’m going to go back to
this color. This quinacridone, I just added a little bit of light to it to lighten it
up to there. Where it’s sitting alone if it’s a little bit darker and less white,
I’m going to add just a touch of the warm red, just so that we get a little bit of a
temperature difference. We’ll start to see the effect of that color temperature difference.
Start to pull out some of these little areas here.
Again, if I’m going to make it a little
bit darker, I’m remixing some of this little bit darker, warmer red. Let me get a little
bit darker, a little warmer. Get that in there.
I can start pulling out a little bit more form with this as well. Really, what I’m
doing is I’m dealing with my saturated area here. I’m dealing with my temperature difference.
Keeping this light and cool again. That’s a little bit too much.
So, now I’ve got my most saturated area in there, and I’ve got this balanced with
that most saturated area. The area, like we said, the area of her face in light is just
slightly less saturated than that zone in the shadow region there.
But what I’m going to do is I’ll go ahead and get some of these dark saturated areas like her eyes, drop those
in, cause I’ll be painting around those. I want to get at least a real dark effect
in there. As saturated as I can get at this real dark range it’s really going to be optimal.
A little cooler. Let me get this.
I can get this lightness of this correct.
We have kind of the white of her eye in here. I want to get that in there.
It’s much darker.
I’m going to go into a little bit darker on the other side here.
It’s actually quite a bit darker.
Okay, now I’m going to look for the general value of her skin in light. I need a little
bit more space. I’m going to carve myself out a little bit more space here.
We know this has to be a step lighter than everything else. Good step lighter. This is getting really
saturated. I’m going to neutralize that just a little bit.
I’m going to warm it up just a little bit. Warm it up a little bit more.
Lighten it a little bit. Cool it off.
Now, a little bit of the black is going to cool this off a little bit, you see? I can
cool that off a little bit in there. I’m getting a little bit of bleed from the paint
leftover, but I think it’s just enough to get these areas knocked in here. So, let’s
go ahead and put some of this in.
Now, from here it gets a little pinker. I’m going
to add a little bit more pink into some of these other zones that come in here and cross here.
down in here, even her cheeks. Start to go in there and a little bit warmer altogether
in her nose area. It’s a little bit darker. That’s what I’m going to get in here and
warmer. Darker and warmer is where I need to go. Darker and warmer. There we go.
Let me go back to this. Saturate that up just a little bit. I’m a little bit too light.
I’m a little bit too light, so I’m going to get back in here, and I’m going to see—like
I said, we’re going to get a little bit more saturation along some of these edges
too like that and like this up here. You see a little bit turning of the planes and stuff in there.
A little warmer yet. That really makes it warm, doesn’t it? I didn’t want
to go that much, so I’ll neutralize this out just a little bit.
That back a little bit, and we’ll get a little bit of the warmth on her chin.
Again, some of that is set up by the reflected light from her blouse, but in order to get
the reflected light on her blouse I’m going to go back to that color of her blouse, and
then I’m going to add a little bit of the skin color to it at that similar value in
there, and that’s where I might get a little bit of a little shock of that color, but it
needs to be much darker. It needs to be down in here. There we go.
That’s going to be her blouse reflected onto her lower jaw and neck. It’s cooler as it comes over here
because this is a darker shadow area right there.
The plane doesn’t face her blouse, so that’s why we see the difference there.
I’m going to lighten this up just a little bit. It does go a little bit lighter and a
little bit cooler over here because of the side over here. The same thing over/under
her eye here like that. It’s going to pick up there, but yet again, when we get down
onto the side of her nose it’s going to pick up a little bit more of this warmth that
we put on here purposely.
Okay, now I’m going to have to go—I’m running short on my time, so I’m going to
go in and make the last few strokes on here.
Little bit neutral but on the yellowish side.
That’s going to happen right in here.
This side of her nose there. Here. Here.
Then lighter and cooler...
right in here. Along the edge in here.
The corner of her eye right in here.
Along the outside plane here
and underneath here, too.
Her chin has a little bit more warmth in it overall.
Let me give you a little bit more of a warmth in there.
Actually, it’s just a little bit pinker. There we go. That’s better. When we do these zones like this, what
happens is we’ve clearly established the most saturated,
and then I get into these areas, and these are the areas where we’re playing clearly
less saturation relative to the overall painting.
These light cools that might just run along
her cheek in here. I’m going to get a little bit more saturation along her cheek, too.
I want to get a little bit more in here. A little bit darker. There we go. It’s a little
bit more like that. And I can even get a little bit on her cheek there played on the other
side of her cheek and her ear.
And where we went a little bit lighter here, I need to keep it a little darker, but I need to keep it a little bit on
that neutral side in that light area along here so that little bit that I put in before is warmer.
This could be a little lighter. That little bit that I put in could be a little bit redder.
Now you can see with just a couple accents I can finish this, and if you can get a couple of those little additions
in there that’s great. If not, just let it go at about 30.
Okay, there we go. So, we have this neutral with warm and cool temperature. Warm and cool temperature in
the background. The light value. The variations between warm and cool in here in a similar value,
and we get a lot of warm and cool in this value in here, keeping the saturation levels modest in here,
strongest in here, and lowest back in here.
AUTO SCROLL
Now, this is our third painting. In this painting, what I’ve done is I’ve created a
lighting setup that is more flat lighting, but we have a very saturated background. She’s wearing a very neutral
top. You’re going to see a greater range of color temperature and saturation range within the zone
of her skin. That’s going to be the challenge on this one. Pay attention to that and get started.
lighting setup that is more flat lighting, but we have a very saturated background. She’s wearing a very neutral
top. You’re going to see a greater range of color temperature and saturation range within the zone
of her skin. That’s going to be the challenge on this one. Pay attention to that and get started.
AUTO SCROLL
Okay, now I’m going to try the same thing. Watch closely as I step through this painting,
and I can show you, hopefully, how to make it a little bit easier. This painting has the situation where the
background is the most saturated red in the image. She has a gray top, and then her normal skin tone.
But when her skin tone is in front of this strong, saturated red, any of the warm, more red areas in here
will associate with the background, so they’ll look a little more saturated. Anything that is a little less red in
the range of her skin tone, anything less red will actually look greener just because of the surround
and how it’s going to appear. We have our darkest dark of the hair, our most saturated here,
our most neutral here. We have quite a bit of colored change in here. In this area we have the area
of the greatest change of color.
Background is the most similar. Her blouse is most similar. Her hair has some variation as well, but not
quite as much as this. It’s important to kind of look up there, and once you’ve set your boundaries, then you
can create this hierarchy of, you know, in this case, what’s more saturated? What’s less saturated?
Then the range of saturation. We can see that there is a greater range within her face than there is in the
background or the shirt. You know, not comparing the background of the shirt, but within the shirt itself there
is not a lot of change of saturation. Within the background there is not a lot of change of saturation.
In her face there is a broad range. There are areas that look more neutral, areas that look more saturated.
Areas that look yellower and areas that look redder, but we see this variation in here, and that’s what’s going to
make the area a little bit more focused. That’s giving us a little focus in that zone.
I’m going to start with the surround because since we’re dealing with the situation that is
the internal relationship compared to that.
I’m going to start with the surround. It’s kind of a dark, medium red. I’m mixing my cool and my warm reds
together. I’m going go to need to add some black to get it down a little bit darker. It’s a little bit too dark.
That’s closer to the value of her hair, but I’m going to need something that’s a little bit more like this.
This isn’t my greatest saturation. Let me get some of this in here a little bit cooler.
Now, I’ll just get a little bit of that in there. That’s really more like what we’re going to see out in this area.
I’m not worried that much about all of this out here quite so much because I want to see what her skin
tones are going to look like next to these reds or these saturated reds. That’s the more important issue here.
Keep in mind these are all studies. These are little exercises and little studies.
Don’t worry about it if you don’t finish or it doesn’t look perfectly anatomical.
I’m not worried about that.
Okay, so what we’ll do is we’ll start with this red. Also, see that I’m going to need to get a little bit darker.
We’ll just get a little bit in there.
I’ve got a little bit of a shadowing happening over here, so I’m going to just—it’s subtle.
Now I’m going to look at her hair. Her hair is going to appear a little bit on the green side, so I use this yellow,
this cadmium yellow light, and you can see it goes a little bit more towards the green.
I’m just blocking it in.
I’m getting a little bit of a bleed to this red getting there,
but I also see it up in here where it’s kind of
turning into a plane that might be getting closer to the direction of that.
Then I’m going to lighten up a little bit
and get the warmth on the top of her hair up here. It’s a little bit lighter value, some little bits in there that
show up as a little bit lighter value.
Still a little bit greener so I’m going to try to keep the greenness in there. You see this was getting warmer.
This is getting a little greener. You see that a little bit greener in there. See a little bit greener in here.
And also out here.
This is a much more darker accent than down in here,
so I want to get that quality, that kind of occlusion in there.
Out of these darks I can see, I’m going to go ahead and put in some of the darks around her eyes.
Since I’m working in this kind of a zone I’m going to get the dark warms of her eyes.
Just get them placed. That’s pretty much what I’m doing with this.
Then what I’m going to do is I’m going to look at trying to keep a little bit of saturation in here.
It’s not nearly going to be as saturated as the background, but I’m going to see that it’s going to be
kind of coming out of this a little bit cooler. I’m going to get a touch of warmth into this.
A little more saturation into this.
It’s still feeling a little bit…
there we go. A little greenish in there.
Again, see, I’m staying in a similar value in here because I can see that underneath her eyes there is
a little bit more red in that area. Same thing in this area here.
Then it gets a little bit greener.
The greenness comes from the lack of red. If there is less red it’s going to appear a little bit greener,
so I can go in and get a little bit of this in here.
Red back in there where it was. A little bit more saturation, not a whole lot of dark.
A little bit more saturation in here. But, you can see even in here it’s much more neutral than the background.
Those are the darker regions. We’ll come back with some lighter values for that.
Then under her nose I’m going to go back and mix a little bit more greenish again.
This in the black will make a little bit more green.
Under here compared to up in here it’s a little bit more gray, right?
It’s going to also be a little bit more gray as we go under here.
Add a little bit too much red in my brush. Let me get back here, make this a little bit greener.
Get it similar in value but you make it a little bit greener. See the difference there?
These are some of the darker zones. I’m going to get a little more saturation, darkness in here
just for her hair. It comes down in here.
Okay, now I’m going to see along here that it’s a little bit darker in here, but I’m going to go ahead and just kind of
put in the main values across her face in this kind of a medium saturation.
I’m going to need to go a little bit lighter than this.
I’m going to get it a little lighter. You can see this is pretty saturated.
When I add the white to those yellows it gets pretty saturated.
What I’m going to have to do is I’m going to mix some gray back into this, maybe get it up to the right value.
Then I’m going to mix some gray back into this. I’ll warm this up. I want to get a little bit of gray happening over here.
Here we go.
So, this neutralizes this down quite a bit. Just a touch of red. Just a little bit of red to kind of warm some of
that up. I’m going to neutralize it even more. Touch of red more.
Actually, we’re going to be in here.
This is kind of the feeling that you’re going to get when you’re surrounding this area with the red.
It’s going to feel a little bit more neutral.
We’re going to get areas on her nose here. We’re going to get a little bit more warmth coming down.
We’re going to get a little bit more warmth yet, so I’m going to warm this and warm that. That’s quite a bit.
That’s gone pretty far. So, rather than scrape it all off, I’m going to mix it. I’m going to say, well, where is that
color up here. If it was just a little bit warmer, a little more saturated,
a little bit warmer it might fit right on her cheek,
so I’m going to go ahead use it. If I can mix it into that color then that’s what I’ll do.
A little bit less red than that, but still dark all in all or a little darker along the side of her nose here, and on the
ball of her nose down here gets a little bit warmer, too.
It kind of looks like I’m going all over the place over here, but I’m trying to get this range of saturation to
neutral to work in all of these zones as we go down her face. That’s what I’m seeing.
Little areas like this are a little more neutral in the beginning, and then they start to turn
and get a little bit more saturated down in there. Okay.
Some little darker, saturated areas that I’m going to see in here.
Now, reflected lights, I mean it can happen in here that the reflected lights can actually go a little more neutral
because you’re bouncing off of here. That can be the case where they actually kind of bouncing up and
they’re feeling a little bit more neutral or a little bit cooler, so I can take this and cool this off by graying this
a little bit. I can see that it may even feel a little bit greener for under her lip here.
This is getting the reflected light from bouncing up under there. Same thing with out here.
It needs to be a little bit lighter though.
Okay, so I’m going to come back up in here, get a little bit of this warmth back just down in here and then along
the sides I’m going to see that her skin as it turns away, it’s going to get a little bit warmer in there too.
That’s too warm.
I’m going to go a little bit more neutral in here, something like this.
It’s got a little bit more yellow in it than that, so I’m going to go ahead and get the yellow back into there.
I see a little bit more in here, too. Maybe a touch more green on this side.
Those are the subtle things that are going to kind of turn the planes a little bit.
Okay, that’s getting really red. I want to get away from that. I want to get into the yellow over in here.
There is a little bit more of this. I want to neutralize that down just a little bit.
I’m going to get into something like this to get the neck in this region. It needs to be more yellow. More yellow.
I can get something close to that. Put in the whole area, and then I can even just go back in and address
some of the subtle changes within that zone.
I want to soften an edge, just soften an edge real quickly. Turn the plane there.
Now, I’m going to see a good amount of more neutral color and a little bit greener into some areas in here,
and they can see quite a bit of the color, the difference when I lay these on. And it’s similar value.
You can see the difference in the color temperature change here and above her clavicle in there
and then down here on her chest. It’s just a little bit more neutral, a little lighter, a little more neutral.
It’s cooler in there. A little darker and neutral over in here as well.
Then the shadows are going to go more saturated.
This one over here is a little bit more neutral than the one above, so like this.
Okay, now I want to get—her lower lip is going to be a little pinker, and it’s somewhere in this area.
Saturated over in here. I want to get a little bit of the saturation.
It’s also saturated along the upper edge there.
I’m going to go dark, go dark and little dark accents in here that are going to be somewhere in here.
Okay, now I’m going to see some of the lighter areas. They’re actually going a little bit cooler again.
It’s a little flatter light, so I’m going to cool this up just a little bit.
I see this in here just a little bit like this. A little lighter.
The white is going to be kind of a cooling agent too.
The pink on her cheek is going to need to get cooled down too.
The other side over here is a little bit cooler, so we’ll take advantage of that.
A real coolness outside here, almost a grayish, a very light gray out here.
Again, in her face is where we’re going to see most of the color temperature difference or the range of
saturation. Most of the differences are going to be happening in her face, and that’s going to draw more
interest into her face, where you have an area that has a lot more contrast you’re going to see more difference.
A little bit more warmth into this for her ear.
That’s a little bit light so let’s knock that back.
We’ll push her ear back just a little bit by bringing it down in value.
It’s even darker over here.
More subtle in there.
I’m going to go back and get some of the darker accents around her eyes,
and then we’re just about done.
When I say I’m done, I’m not really done with the painting. I’m done with the general spots.
There is a lot of things I could do if I went into these little zones and worked on bringing a little bit more
saturation back into some of these little bits. You see where it can get—the difference between this neutral
right there, and I’m putting something that’s a lot more saturated next to it, coming up in terms of the little flap
on her eye and her eyelid in there. The difference between those two kind of ignites the area a little bit.
Same with some of the things in here. I’m still getting some of the gray of her shirt reflected up into her jaw
that I’m not getting yet over here. This is just a little bit darker in here. Warm that slightly.
Then get that over in here.
As that plane turns it gets a little bit warm in here.
Let me get a little bit more of that back in there. There we go.
Okay, now our most neutral is her shirt, so I’m going to make sure I get her shirt in a very neutral gray.
I’ll try not to pollute that with any other hue. Although it does get a little bit more like this, because it’s
surrounded by the red it’s going to get a little bit of the appearance of the green in some areas.
Let me just block this in and we are done.
Just because I want to get this surround. I want to see what I’m doing is surrounding those warm tones here
and as highly saturated—oops, pollution.
There we go. There we go, so we get a broad range in there of saturation.
You can see a lot of the variation in saturation here compared to the flat. High saturation to the flatter
low saturation. To balance these things set it up in your zones like that. It makes it a lot easier to manage.
It gives you the groups that you can work with.
and I can show you, hopefully, how to make it a little bit easier. This painting has the situation where the
background is the most saturated red in the image. She has a gray top, and then her normal skin tone.
But when her skin tone is in front of this strong, saturated red, any of the warm, more red areas in here
will associate with the background, so they’ll look a little more saturated. Anything that is a little less red in
the range of her skin tone, anything less red will actually look greener just because of the surround
and how it’s going to appear. We have our darkest dark of the hair, our most saturated here,
our most neutral here. We have quite a bit of colored change in here. In this area we have the area
of the greatest change of color.
Background is the most similar. Her blouse is most similar. Her hair has some variation as well, but not
quite as much as this. It’s important to kind of look up there, and once you’ve set your boundaries, then you
can create this hierarchy of, you know, in this case, what’s more saturated? What’s less saturated?
Then the range of saturation. We can see that there is a greater range within her face than there is in the
background or the shirt. You know, not comparing the background of the shirt, but within the shirt itself there
is not a lot of change of saturation. Within the background there is not a lot of change of saturation.
In her face there is a broad range. There are areas that look more neutral, areas that look more saturated.
Areas that look yellower and areas that look redder, but we see this variation in here, and that’s what’s going to
make the area a little bit more focused. That’s giving us a little focus in that zone.
I’m going to start with the surround because since we’re dealing with the situation that is
the internal relationship compared to that.
I’m going to start with the surround. It’s kind of a dark, medium red. I’m mixing my cool and my warm reds
together. I’m going go to need to add some black to get it down a little bit darker. It’s a little bit too dark.
That’s closer to the value of her hair, but I’m going to need something that’s a little bit more like this.
This isn’t my greatest saturation. Let me get some of this in here a little bit cooler.
Now, I’ll just get a little bit of that in there. That’s really more like what we’re going to see out in this area.
I’m not worried that much about all of this out here quite so much because I want to see what her skin
tones are going to look like next to these reds or these saturated reds. That’s the more important issue here.
Keep in mind these are all studies. These are little exercises and little studies.
Don’t worry about it if you don’t finish or it doesn’t look perfectly anatomical.
I’m not worried about that.
Okay, so what we’ll do is we’ll start with this red. Also, see that I’m going to need to get a little bit darker.
We’ll just get a little bit in there.
I’ve got a little bit of a shadowing happening over here, so I’m going to just—it’s subtle.
Now I’m going to look at her hair. Her hair is going to appear a little bit on the green side, so I use this yellow,
this cadmium yellow light, and you can see it goes a little bit more towards the green.
I’m just blocking it in.
I’m getting a little bit of a bleed to this red getting there,
but I also see it up in here where it’s kind of
turning into a plane that might be getting closer to the direction of that.
Then I’m going to lighten up a little bit
and get the warmth on the top of her hair up here. It’s a little bit lighter value, some little bits in there that
show up as a little bit lighter value.
Still a little bit greener so I’m going to try to keep the greenness in there. You see this was getting warmer.
This is getting a little greener. You see that a little bit greener in there. See a little bit greener in here.
And also out here.
This is a much more darker accent than down in here,
so I want to get that quality, that kind of occlusion in there.
Out of these darks I can see, I’m going to go ahead and put in some of the darks around her eyes.
Since I’m working in this kind of a zone I’m going to get the dark warms of her eyes.
Just get them placed. That’s pretty much what I’m doing with this.
Then what I’m going to do is I’m going to look at trying to keep a little bit of saturation in here.
It’s not nearly going to be as saturated as the background, but I’m going to see that it’s going to be
kind of coming out of this a little bit cooler. I’m going to get a touch of warmth into this.
A little more saturation into this.
It’s still feeling a little bit…
there we go. A little greenish in there.
Again, see, I’m staying in a similar value in here because I can see that underneath her eyes there is
a little bit more red in that area. Same thing in this area here.
Then it gets a little bit greener.
The greenness comes from the lack of red. If there is less red it’s going to appear a little bit greener,
so I can go in and get a little bit of this in here.
Red back in there where it was. A little bit more saturation, not a whole lot of dark.
A little bit more saturation in here. But, you can see even in here it’s much more neutral than the background.
Those are the darker regions. We’ll come back with some lighter values for that.
Then under her nose I’m going to go back and mix a little bit more greenish again.
This in the black will make a little bit more green.
Under here compared to up in here it’s a little bit more gray, right?
It’s going to also be a little bit more gray as we go under here.
Add a little bit too much red in my brush. Let me get back here, make this a little bit greener.
Get it similar in value but you make it a little bit greener. See the difference there?
These are some of the darker zones. I’m going to get a little more saturation, darkness in here
just for her hair. It comes down in here.
Okay, now I’m going to see along here that it’s a little bit darker in here, but I’m going to go ahead and just kind of
put in the main values across her face in this kind of a medium saturation.
I’m going to need to go a little bit lighter than this.
I’m going to get it a little lighter. You can see this is pretty saturated.
When I add the white to those yellows it gets pretty saturated.
What I’m going to have to do is I’m going to mix some gray back into this, maybe get it up to the right value.
Then I’m going to mix some gray back into this. I’ll warm this up. I want to get a little bit of gray happening over here.
Here we go.
So, this neutralizes this down quite a bit. Just a touch of red. Just a little bit of red to kind of warm some of
that up. I’m going to neutralize it even more. Touch of red more.
Actually, we’re going to be in here.
This is kind of the feeling that you’re going to get when you’re surrounding this area with the red.
It’s going to feel a little bit more neutral.
We’re going to get areas on her nose here. We’re going to get a little bit more warmth coming down.
We’re going to get a little bit more warmth yet, so I’m going to warm this and warm that. That’s quite a bit.
That’s gone pretty far. So, rather than scrape it all off, I’m going to mix it. I’m going to say, well, where is that
color up here. If it was just a little bit warmer, a little more saturated,
a little bit warmer it might fit right on her cheek,
so I’m going to go ahead use it. If I can mix it into that color then that’s what I’ll do.
A little bit less red than that, but still dark all in all or a little darker along the side of her nose here, and on the
ball of her nose down here gets a little bit warmer, too.
It kind of looks like I’m going all over the place over here, but I’m trying to get this range of saturation to
neutral to work in all of these zones as we go down her face. That’s what I’m seeing.
Little areas like this are a little more neutral in the beginning, and then they start to turn
and get a little bit more saturated down in there. Okay.
Some little darker, saturated areas that I’m going to see in here.
Now, reflected lights, I mean it can happen in here that the reflected lights can actually go a little more neutral
because you’re bouncing off of here. That can be the case where they actually kind of bouncing up and
they’re feeling a little bit more neutral or a little bit cooler, so I can take this and cool this off by graying this
a little bit. I can see that it may even feel a little bit greener for under her lip here.
This is getting the reflected light from bouncing up under there. Same thing with out here.
It needs to be a little bit lighter though.
Okay, so I’m going to come back up in here, get a little bit of this warmth back just down in here and then along
the sides I’m going to see that her skin as it turns away, it’s going to get a little bit warmer in there too.
That’s too warm.
I’m going to go a little bit more neutral in here, something like this.
It’s got a little bit more yellow in it than that, so I’m going to go ahead and get the yellow back into there.
I see a little bit more in here, too. Maybe a touch more green on this side.
Those are the subtle things that are going to kind of turn the planes a little bit.
Okay, that’s getting really red. I want to get away from that. I want to get into the yellow over in here.
There is a little bit more of this. I want to neutralize that down just a little bit.
I’m going to get into something like this to get the neck in this region. It needs to be more yellow. More yellow.
I can get something close to that. Put in the whole area, and then I can even just go back in and address
some of the subtle changes within that zone.
I want to soften an edge, just soften an edge real quickly. Turn the plane there.
Now, I’m going to see a good amount of more neutral color and a little bit greener into some areas in here,
and they can see quite a bit of the color, the difference when I lay these on. And it’s similar value.
You can see the difference in the color temperature change here and above her clavicle in there
and then down here on her chest. It’s just a little bit more neutral, a little lighter, a little more neutral.
It’s cooler in there. A little darker and neutral over in here as well.
Then the shadows are going to go more saturated.
This one over here is a little bit more neutral than the one above, so like this.
Okay, now I want to get—her lower lip is going to be a little pinker, and it’s somewhere in this area.
Saturated over in here. I want to get a little bit of the saturation.
It’s also saturated along the upper edge there.
I’m going to go dark, go dark and little dark accents in here that are going to be somewhere in here.
Okay, now I’m going to see some of the lighter areas. They’re actually going a little bit cooler again.
It’s a little flatter light, so I’m going to cool this up just a little bit.
I see this in here just a little bit like this. A little lighter.
The white is going to be kind of a cooling agent too.
The pink on her cheek is going to need to get cooled down too.
The other side over here is a little bit cooler, so we’ll take advantage of that.
A real coolness outside here, almost a grayish, a very light gray out here.
Again, in her face is where we’re going to see most of the color temperature difference or the range of
saturation. Most of the differences are going to be happening in her face, and that’s going to draw more
interest into her face, where you have an area that has a lot more contrast you’re going to see more difference.
A little bit more warmth into this for her ear.
That’s a little bit light so let’s knock that back.
We’ll push her ear back just a little bit by bringing it down in value.
It’s even darker over here.
More subtle in there.
I’m going to go back and get some of the darker accents around her eyes,
and then we’re just about done.
When I say I’m done, I’m not really done with the painting. I’m done with the general spots.
There is a lot of things I could do if I went into these little zones and worked on bringing a little bit more
saturation back into some of these little bits. You see where it can get—the difference between this neutral
right there, and I’m putting something that’s a lot more saturated next to it, coming up in terms of the little flap
on her eye and her eyelid in there. The difference between those two kind of ignites the area a little bit.
Same with some of the things in here. I’m still getting some of the gray of her shirt reflected up into her jaw
that I’m not getting yet over here. This is just a little bit darker in here. Warm that slightly.
Then get that over in here.
As that plane turns it gets a little bit warm in here.
Let me get a little bit more of that back in there. There we go.
Okay, now our most neutral is her shirt, so I’m going to make sure I get her shirt in a very neutral gray.
I’ll try not to pollute that with any other hue. Although it does get a little bit more like this, because it’s
surrounded by the red it’s going to get a little bit of the appearance of the green in some areas.
Let me just block this in and we are done.
Just because I want to get this surround. I want to see what I’m doing is surrounding those warm tones here
and as highly saturated—oops, pollution.
There we go. There we go, so we get a broad range in there of saturation.
You can see a lot of the variation in saturation here compared to the flat. High saturation to the flatter
low saturation. To balance these things set it up in your zones like that. It makes it a lot easier to manage.
It gives you the groups that you can work with.
AUTO SCROLL
In this fourth painting of the series, I set up a dark background again, but I created a situation where our
model is wearing a very saturated dress, and then her skin tones have a wide range of saturation in a lighter
value. As you go through this, block it out simply and look at those different arrangements of saturation.
Contrast one area to the other, and then you’ll be able
to manage the in between areas like her hair, like the shadow and stuff.
Go ahead, get started.
model is wearing a very saturated dress, and then her skin tones have a wide range of saturation in a lighter
value. As you go through this, block it out simply and look at those different arrangements of saturation.
Contrast one area to the other, and then you’ll be able
to manage the in between areas like her hair, like the shadow and stuff.
Go ahead, get started.
AUTO SCROLL
Okay, that was a different setup, and I hope that when you look at all of your four paintings from this series,
you’re going to see that they look very, very different. If they start to look the same you’re not looking close
enough. Now, I’m going to take a turn at the same painting. Again, they’re all time boxed,
so I’m not trying to finish a painting. I’m just trying to get those spots down in a good relationship.
In this study her dress is going to be the most saturated. The background is dark, and then we’re going
to get some more saturated in the shadow side of her face, and then in the light side of her face.
Again, the exposure is set so that it’s really matching this mid area as the light turns into shadow.
We get a little bit more saturation in her face in these different hues along here. Her top is going to be warmer
red, but it’ll be a very saturated, warm red. It’ll be the most saturated note up there.
What I’m looking for is I’m looking for the greatest range of contrast that’s going to be between the neutral
background and the redness in her dress. Then they’ll be a medium range of saturation in her skin tone in here
compared to the saturated here. That’s the way I’m going to break that one down. That’s what I observe.
So, I’m going to think about laying this painting in in those terms. Where is most saturated?
Where is my least saturated? Where is the area of greatest contrast of saturation?
So, with the darkest dark being this black background,
I don’t want to make it completely black again. That way I can still bring some blacks into this if we want it.
I’m going to keep this fairly black for this exercise. I’m going to keep these pretty neutral black,
just so I can get the greater contrast out of the saturation. I’m comparing that to the level of saturation.
I’ve got my darkest dark and my most neutral in there all at once. I’m going to see that her hair is the next
darkest thing in here. Add some warmth in it, so I want to make a distinction between her hair in the
background, so I’m going to make this a little bit warmer. Little lighter, little warmer in the background
so that we can perceive a little bit of difference in there.
We go a little bit lighter. Feeling a little bit lighter and a little warmer in here as well,
so we just see a little bit of warmth along the side there.
And then a little bit darker, but still warm above this side. Very subtle.
Wisps of hair coming off here.
I’ll keep this one really simple by laying in the whole zone with one color first. I’ll just do that first.
This will be the shadow side of her face.
Actually, I see quite a bit of a red in this area. I’ll block that in.
Little more saturated, a little bit lighter over in this side.
Since I’m comparing from side to side as well, I can see it’s just a little bit more saturated, a little bit lighter over
on that side with her hair coming down. I compare from side to side. I’m comparing in the zones,
and I’m staying within this one zone. I want to make this a little bit greener than this over here.
Keep it similar value. I’m going to see that up in here. It’s a similar value, but greener.
Warm that up just a little bit to get into this shadow area here.
I’ve got a little darkening in there, along the plane down here too. It’s going to follow along down in here under
her jaw. This is going to get a little bit lighter.
Not much, but just a little bit lighter. That’s a little bit too red.
Actually a little bit more green. I have to illuminate the redness in that if I’m going to get more green out of it.
Again, I’m going to see this as greener. This is redder over here. I’m going to put one on them, comparing
from side to side. Also, I can see that I’m getting really warm along here.
But none of these warm tones that I’m putting in here—or the saturated tones—are as saturated
as what her dress is. They’re all quite a bit more neutral than what is going to happen on her dress.
So, I’m just keeping track of that as well.
Okay, I’m going to get a little more saturation along down below here on her jaw. It started to turn a little
neutral as it did up here, but as we get lower on her jaw we’re going to get a little bit more saturation that’s going
to be a little more reflected light off of her dress. It’s going to appear like this.
Something like that. Going to get a little more saturation again as well as the turn of this plane
comes up this way, as it comes forward like this.
Quite neutral in this area.
We have to have some real neutral areas in order to make the other saturated areas really stand out.
That’s what’s going to make those transitions really work.
A little lighter, a little cooler.
Happens along in here. Underneath.
Get a little bit more saturation underneath there. We get a similar saturation right in here.
Okay, so I’ve kind of worked out this zone. So now what I’m going to do is I’m going to go ahead and lay her skin
in light so I know it’s has to be a little step lighter all the way around over here. It’s going to be a little bit yellower.
I’m going to make it a little bit greener too. I’m going to get a little bit of the green-gray in there too.
Make this a little lighter yet.
There we go.
We might see a little bit more saturation right along the edge here possibly. I see a little bit up there.
We need to get a little bit darker than that in this region even though it’s in light.
As we go into light, again we’re going to gain a little bit of saturation on the edge of that turning here.
Same thing on the top of her nose in here.
Same thing in the corner of her eye in here.
Then we’ll go back to this lighter area in here. It’s got this warm tone in here like this.
I’ll just fill in this whole area with this. Then we’ll come back and shift the hue just a little bit.
Lighter yet.
I’m going to see a little saturation where we get a little turn away from the light here.
That’s going to get complemented by something that’s a little bit more neutral and light right here.
Okay, so she has some redder cheeks. I’m going to make sure that she gets a good red cheek in here.
Little bit more red, little less yellow.
That’s the area where we’re going to see—I’m going to go a little bit darker. We’re going to see just a little bit
more turn on that plane. We get a little bit darker and make sure we get the red in there or the warmth in there.
Now, the darkness of this same warm color, we’re going to neutralize it just a little bit. But it needs to stay pretty
dark for this area over here. This is an area in light, but if we go real light, light in there it’s going to really stand out,
so we need to make sure that this side of her face in light still feels illuminated, but it doesn’t feel like it’s flat
and comes up parallel to the other side of her face. It’s going to stay down just a little bit darker.
That’s why I’m dipping into these little darker zones in here like this. I’m pulling out this range of saturation
and value that’s going to sit in this area.
Okay, so bring this up just a little bit lighter.
I’m going to lighten this just slightly and get it in here. It needs to be in here.
I want to get her skin next to the redness of her dress, and I’m going to see that it’s going to get really kind of
light and really pale in here. Where it gets hit with a little bit of a light,
the plane over on this side goes even more neutral like this, and picking up under here.
Same thing on here.
Then a little bit more yellow and yellow-gray in here.
This is like really subtle neutrals in here and a little bit along the edge here too. They get pretty subtle in here
where they pick up inside that area.
Same thing in here. This is going to turn the plane there and also there too.
I’ll get a little cool back on there.
Now what I want to do is I want to make sure that I get the redness of her dress in there
so we can see it next to her skin color.
When we have a situation like this where you get these subtle neutrals in her skin next to something that is
really saturated in here you get a lot of vibration. You can.
You can get a lot of vibration in the light colors here.
I’m going to darken just a little bit to get over the top of her shoulder, also along the side here where it
goes into a little shadow there. We also have it going over her shoulder here and a little shadow in here too.
Other than that, I’m going to lighten this up a little bit. It goes a little pink. I’m going to try to keep this bright.
Keep it brighter. I’ll try and make it lighter here. If it goes too cool I can try and warm it up with a little bit of this. There we go.
Let me get some of the folds and just some of the changes in her blouse.
There is kind of a lacy top in there. Not a lacy but a little movement in here.
There we go. So now we have this strong saturated color in there, and I’m going to get my other values.
These are going to turn back towards the background. As they do they’re going to get a little bit darker on the
edge up there. They might get a little bit more yellow. Let’s get this yellower. There we go.
Even darker yellow.
When we want to turn this a little more forward, we’re going to end up adding quite a bit more white.
The white is going to lighten this area next. That’s a little bit too pink or too saturated. I want to go a little bit more
neutral, get a little bit more yellow but keep it neutral. So I’m going into this region here for this area.
Same thing over here.
Now I’m going to go back and get some of these areas on her face. We’ll get that really gray or gray—gray,
grayest of the light grays in here.
Just kind of reinforce some of those things.
Then if I get into my darkest darks and get into her eyes and stuff like that
I’ll get back into some of these real dark. Soften that up just a little bit.
Again, if I want to make these real dark areas very saturated I want to make sure that I can…
I want to make sure that I can push these things just a little bit
and push them saturated and dark where they need to go down in here.
Some of these little tiny, really strong accents can pay off too inside these little areas.
That’s a little bit too light, so I need to go a little bit darker in there.
That’s just a little bit of the reflection coming up into the underside of her eye. At this point, again, like I laid in
down here I put in some of the little lighter areas. They seemed to be a little bit cooler in some of the darker
little accents. That’s what I’m looking for right now. Where are these accents? Where do they need to be?
What’s going to really—maybe this needs to be a little bit more intense color in here.
A little more saturated color.
Maybe I need to darken a few little areas in here that can make it feel like the planes are turning just a little bit
in there somewhere like that. A little darker accent. And her coolest little bits in here too might be
something in here. Something like that. You get really, really, really light in here like this.
Pick up something there. Then you get back to this. I need to lighten this up more but get a little less warmth in it.
Keep polluting my color. When you get a little bit lighter in here you’ve got to really watch how you’re going to
pick up other hue in there.
A little pinker.
So, as you can see, we don’t get a finished painting, but we do set up the condition for the range of saturation,
and it works out pretty good, where you can get something so neutral against something so saturated.
Then we get this range of neutral, the saturation within here in your area of interest. There you go.
Okay, I hope you enjoyed this series of paintings.
I want you to just look back at all of them now. Set them up on the wall and take a look at them.
Just make sure that they’re all looking very different. If you’re paintings start to look the same, then you aren’t
looking hard enough, and you aren’t pushing yourself hard enough. That’s the key to this session.
Paint fast and confront yourself with different situations.
Our next session is going to be on the contrast of color temperature. Okay, so we’ll see you next time.
you’re going to see that they look very, very different. If they start to look the same you’re not looking close
enough. Now, I’m going to take a turn at the same painting. Again, they’re all time boxed,
so I’m not trying to finish a painting. I’m just trying to get those spots down in a good relationship.
In this study her dress is going to be the most saturated. The background is dark, and then we’re going
to get some more saturated in the shadow side of her face, and then in the light side of her face.
Again, the exposure is set so that it’s really matching this mid area as the light turns into shadow.
We get a little bit more saturation in her face in these different hues along here. Her top is going to be warmer
red, but it’ll be a very saturated, warm red. It’ll be the most saturated note up there.
What I’m looking for is I’m looking for the greatest range of contrast that’s going to be between the neutral
background and the redness in her dress. Then they’ll be a medium range of saturation in her skin tone in here
compared to the saturated here. That’s the way I’m going to break that one down. That’s what I observe.
So, I’m going to think about laying this painting in in those terms. Where is most saturated?
Where is my least saturated? Where is the area of greatest contrast of saturation?
So, with the darkest dark being this black background,
I don’t want to make it completely black again. That way I can still bring some blacks into this if we want it.
I’m going to keep this fairly black for this exercise. I’m going to keep these pretty neutral black,
just so I can get the greater contrast out of the saturation. I’m comparing that to the level of saturation.
I’ve got my darkest dark and my most neutral in there all at once. I’m going to see that her hair is the next
darkest thing in here. Add some warmth in it, so I want to make a distinction between her hair in the
background, so I’m going to make this a little bit warmer. Little lighter, little warmer in the background
so that we can perceive a little bit of difference in there.
We go a little bit lighter. Feeling a little bit lighter and a little warmer in here as well,
so we just see a little bit of warmth along the side there.
And then a little bit darker, but still warm above this side. Very subtle.
Wisps of hair coming off here.
I’ll keep this one really simple by laying in the whole zone with one color first. I’ll just do that first.
This will be the shadow side of her face.
Actually, I see quite a bit of a red in this area. I’ll block that in.
Little more saturated, a little bit lighter over in this side.
Since I’m comparing from side to side as well, I can see it’s just a little bit more saturated, a little bit lighter over
on that side with her hair coming down. I compare from side to side. I’m comparing in the zones,
and I’m staying within this one zone. I want to make this a little bit greener than this over here.
Keep it similar value. I’m going to see that up in here. It’s a similar value, but greener.
Warm that up just a little bit to get into this shadow area here.
I’ve got a little darkening in there, along the plane down here too. It’s going to follow along down in here under
her jaw. This is going to get a little bit lighter.
Not much, but just a little bit lighter. That’s a little bit too red.
Actually a little bit more green. I have to illuminate the redness in that if I’m going to get more green out of it.
Again, I’m going to see this as greener. This is redder over here. I’m going to put one on them, comparing
from side to side. Also, I can see that I’m getting really warm along here.
But none of these warm tones that I’m putting in here—or the saturated tones—are as saturated
as what her dress is. They’re all quite a bit more neutral than what is going to happen on her dress.
So, I’m just keeping track of that as well.
Okay, I’m going to get a little more saturation along down below here on her jaw. It started to turn a little
neutral as it did up here, but as we get lower on her jaw we’re going to get a little bit more saturation that’s going
to be a little more reflected light off of her dress. It’s going to appear like this.
Something like that. Going to get a little more saturation again as well as the turn of this plane
comes up this way, as it comes forward like this.
Quite neutral in this area.
We have to have some real neutral areas in order to make the other saturated areas really stand out.
That’s what’s going to make those transitions really work.
A little lighter, a little cooler.
Happens along in here. Underneath.
Get a little bit more saturation underneath there. We get a similar saturation right in here.
Okay, so I’ve kind of worked out this zone. So now what I’m going to do is I’m going to go ahead and lay her skin
in light so I know it’s has to be a little step lighter all the way around over here. It’s going to be a little bit yellower.
I’m going to make it a little bit greener too. I’m going to get a little bit of the green-gray in there too.
Make this a little lighter yet.
There we go.
We might see a little bit more saturation right along the edge here possibly. I see a little bit up there.
We need to get a little bit darker than that in this region even though it’s in light.
As we go into light, again we’re going to gain a little bit of saturation on the edge of that turning here.
Same thing on the top of her nose in here.
Same thing in the corner of her eye in here.
Then we’ll go back to this lighter area in here. It’s got this warm tone in here like this.
I’ll just fill in this whole area with this. Then we’ll come back and shift the hue just a little bit.
Lighter yet.
I’m going to see a little saturation where we get a little turn away from the light here.
That’s going to get complemented by something that’s a little bit more neutral and light right here.
Okay, so she has some redder cheeks. I’m going to make sure that she gets a good red cheek in here.
Little bit more red, little less yellow.
That’s the area where we’re going to see—I’m going to go a little bit darker. We’re going to see just a little bit
more turn on that plane. We get a little bit darker and make sure we get the red in there or the warmth in there.
Now, the darkness of this same warm color, we’re going to neutralize it just a little bit. But it needs to stay pretty
dark for this area over here. This is an area in light, but if we go real light, light in there it’s going to really stand out,
so we need to make sure that this side of her face in light still feels illuminated, but it doesn’t feel like it’s flat
and comes up parallel to the other side of her face. It’s going to stay down just a little bit darker.
That’s why I’m dipping into these little darker zones in here like this. I’m pulling out this range of saturation
and value that’s going to sit in this area.
Okay, so bring this up just a little bit lighter.
I’m going to lighten this just slightly and get it in here. It needs to be in here.
I want to get her skin next to the redness of her dress, and I’m going to see that it’s going to get really kind of
light and really pale in here. Where it gets hit with a little bit of a light,
the plane over on this side goes even more neutral like this, and picking up under here.
Same thing on here.
Then a little bit more yellow and yellow-gray in here.
This is like really subtle neutrals in here and a little bit along the edge here too. They get pretty subtle in here
where they pick up inside that area.
Same thing in here. This is going to turn the plane there and also there too.
I’ll get a little cool back on there.
Now what I want to do is I want to make sure that I get the redness of her dress in there
so we can see it next to her skin color.
When we have a situation like this where you get these subtle neutrals in her skin next to something that is
really saturated in here you get a lot of vibration. You can.
You can get a lot of vibration in the light colors here.
I’m going to darken just a little bit to get over the top of her shoulder, also along the side here where it
goes into a little shadow there. We also have it going over her shoulder here and a little shadow in here too.
Other than that, I’m going to lighten this up a little bit. It goes a little pink. I’m going to try to keep this bright.
Keep it brighter. I’ll try and make it lighter here. If it goes too cool I can try and warm it up with a little bit of this. There we go.
Let me get some of the folds and just some of the changes in her blouse.
There is kind of a lacy top in there. Not a lacy but a little movement in here.
There we go. So now we have this strong saturated color in there, and I’m going to get my other values.
These are going to turn back towards the background. As they do they’re going to get a little bit darker on the
edge up there. They might get a little bit more yellow. Let’s get this yellower. There we go.
Even darker yellow.
When we want to turn this a little more forward, we’re going to end up adding quite a bit more white.
The white is going to lighten this area next. That’s a little bit too pink or too saturated. I want to go a little bit more
neutral, get a little bit more yellow but keep it neutral. So I’m going into this region here for this area.
Same thing over here.
Now I’m going to go back and get some of these areas on her face. We’ll get that really gray or gray—gray,
grayest of the light grays in here.
Just kind of reinforce some of those things.
Then if I get into my darkest darks and get into her eyes and stuff like that
I’ll get back into some of these real dark. Soften that up just a little bit.
Again, if I want to make these real dark areas very saturated I want to make sure that I can…
I want to make sure that I can push these things just a little bit
and push them saturated and dark where they need to go down in here.
Some of these little tiny, really strong accents can pay off too inside these little areas.
That’s a little bit too light, so I need to go a little bit darker in there.
That’s just a little bit of the reflection coming up into the underside of her eye. At this point, again, like I laid in
down here I put in some of the little lighter areas. They seemed to be a little bit cooler in some of the darker
little accents. That’s what I’m looking for right now. Where are these accents? Where do they need to be?
What’s going to really—maybe this needs to be a little bit more intense color in here.
A little more saturated color.
Maybe I need to darken a few little areas in here that can make it feel like the planes are turning just a little bit
in there somewhere like that. A little darker accent. And her coolest little bits in here too might be
something in here. Something like that. You get really, really, really light in here like this.
Pick up something there. Then you get back to this. I need to lighten this up more but get a little less warmth in it.
Keep polluting my color. When you get a little bit lighter in here you’ve got to really watch how you’re going to
pick up other hue in there.
A little pinker.
So, as you can see, we don’t get a finished painting, but we do set up the condition for the range of saturation,
and it works out pretty good, where you can get something so neutral against something so saturated.
Then we get this range of neutral, the saturation within here in your area of interest. There you go.
Okay, I hope you enjoyed this series of paintings.
I want you to just look back at all of them now. Set them up on the wall and take a look at them.
Just make sure that they’re all looking very different. If you’re paintings start to look the same, then you aren’t
looking hard enough, and you aren’t pushing yourself hard enough. That’s the key to this session.
Paint fast and confront yourself with different situations.
Our next session is going to be on the contrast of color temperature. Okay, so we’ll see you next time.
Free to try
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1. Lesson Overview
48sNow playing...
Watch the whole lesson with a subscription
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2. Introduction to Saturation
8m 14s -
3. Assignment 1: Overall Low Saturation
31m 20s -
4. Bill's Approach to Assignment 1
34m 16s -
5. Assignment 2: Neutral Areas vs. Saturated Areas
30m 58s -
6. Bill's Approach to Assignment 2
35m 9s -
7. Assignment 3: Flat Lighting, Saturated Background, Neutral Shirt
30m 48s -
8. Bill's Approach to Assignment 3
30m 20s -
9. Assignment 4: Dark Background, Saturated Shirt and Skin Tones
30m 56s -
10. Bill's Approach to Assignment 4
31m 20s
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