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| Sunset over the Catskills by James Gurney, oil painting. |
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If I want to excel in my craft and become any kind of decent
realist painter, the two aspects of
oil painting that I need to focus on are
color and light. Perfecting the two, together, will allow me to paint anything
I want.
James Gurney is a plein air painter and the fantasy art
author and illustrator of the book series, Dinotopia.
His expertise with painting color and light is well known, and I've gleaned a
few great tips from his book, Color and
Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter, to share with you.
One important point is that overcast light is surprisingly
ideal for painting because it reduces extreme contrasts of light and shadow. So
when I look at a scene I can assess its true colors without any extreme
contrasts of light and shade. And looking for this kind of lighting is a reward
because colors also appear sharper, which means I can use more high-octane
colors on canvas.
Local color, or the color of the surface of an object as it
appears in white light, is key in almost every painting. The colors I mix will
likely be to some degree made up of local color. Using that as a starting
point, I can lighten or darken the color to model a form, add gray to create a
sense of atmosphere, and bring in a different hue for reflected light.
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Millbrook Library by James Gurney, oil painting. |
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Green (one of my favorite colors!) is one of the toughest
colors (boo!) to make work in a painting, which is surprising given how
commonplace it is in our natural world. Gurney's tips for handling green include not
using any greens from a tube, instead mixing them with several blues and
yellows for weaker and more varied colors.
He also recommends using pinks and
reddish grays with greens to make the colors pop, and
varying the green mixtures based on the scale of an object.
I've got to tell you I'm a little bit in love with this
book! Gurney is a whiz with so many painting techniques, and in Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist
Painter he gives straightforward instruction that has helped me really
understand and flesh-out my own painting process. This book is sure to be a
faithful companion for me, and I hope you find Gurney's insights and tutelage
as rewarding for you. Enjoy!
