From Color Theory to Color Reality
This weekend, Kathy and I took a two-day class on Color with Tesia Blackburn. Tesia works with Golden Acrylics, as do we. Last May, we took an acrylic surfacing class from her that was fabulous, so we were excited to take another of her classes.
Tesia is a fun instructor. After explaining some of the technical background regarding pigments, she had us gather around so she could show us our first exercise. "Color theory is fine," she said, "but this...THIS is color reality." Ha!
She did have a point - color reality is a bit different from color theory. I've studied color theory over the years and everything makes a lot of sense when you read about it and observe color around you. But when you actually start working with the color - particularly, mixing new colors or trying to match a shade - you find that getting results is not as clear-cut as you imagined. There is a bit of finesse required and I think that only comes from a combination of experience and intuition. That's my way of saying that it all sounded easy, but a lot of the exercises ended up being hard!
During the course of the weekend, we worked exclusively with three colors - Hansa Yellow Medium, Quinacridone Magenta, and Pthalo Blue (green shade). With these colors, we were able to make a complete color wheel, mix blacks, and match colors to the objects she placed before us. We added Titanium White, Zinc White, and Carbon Black to our toolkit on the second day, but that was only for tinting and shading exercises.
Tesia said that by the end of class, we were not only going to be "not intimidated" by color, but we were going to kick color in the butt. (I just love her!) I'm not positive that I'm kicking color just yet, but I certainly feel a heck of a lot closer. I'm excited to continue my color experiments, because now I'm very clear that nothing is as powerful as doing the exercises yourself.
That said, no way am I giving up my tubes of green gold, permanent violet dark, and burnt umber paint ... even IF I can recreate them myself. Knowledge is power, but the perfect hue from the tube...that's convenience! ;-)
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