Simplicity + Watercolors
Wed, July 7, 2010 at 07:00AM "To emphasize
only the beautiful
seems to me to be like
a mathematical system
that only concerns itself
with positive numbers."
~ Paul Klee
Clear water, a brush, watercolor pans. Elegant simplicity. Light, peaceful, carefree. I dream of watercolors. Of ultramarine and magenta, of lemon yellow and crimson. I wonder what it is about painting that helps get rid of stress, that allows ideas to germinate, that puts us in a state of flow. You can just get lost in color, adding a bit of this or that, playing.
I'm a total beginner at color mixing, because I still don't understand why certain colors work together and others don't. I have been reading and reading about this, but my analytical number-crunching brain doesn't grasp the science. The Color Mixing Bible is a great book on mixing colors (hence the name). With grids of the color resulting from mixing two colors of acrylic, oil, watercolor, etc. I don't use it as a color recipe book, but it has really helped me.
More on watercolors in Little [Expanding] Set of Paints and Watercolorlandia.
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Reader Comments (5)
Over the course of a lifetime, I'm not sure how many color classes I've taken, but there have been a few. There's always something to learn, but the best way is by 'doing'! Have fun experimenting, Tammy! Hugs, Terri xoxo
thanks for letting us know about the color mixing bible...just ordered my own copy!
I used to shy away from color mixing (why do I have to mix when I can buy individual bottles/jars of color?) but with time I see it really makes a difference. One tip I got in a class recently is to mix just a dab of a complement with your primary to get some really interesting colors. Another book you may like is Exploring Color by Nita Leland; the book is adaptable to all kinds of paint, but she uses watercolor.
sounds like a great book! love the on the border jar in the background!
Good luck with learning how to mix colours, basiclly if you know how the colourwheel works ,then youve just got to practice& experimenr. If it helps i did a blog post with my knowledge
http://makealifeandmore.blogspot.com/2010/03/colour-mixing-101.html
:)