Exploring colour

I attended a weekend workshop on colour theory with local artist Morag Stokes in September which was a lot of fun. We looked at the difference between chroma and value and the difference between the modern pigments which are brighter and the older traditional mineral-based pigments like cadmium red. Next using three primaries - a blue, yellow and red - we first had to create ‘mud’ which is the dark, nearly black neutral you get when you mix all three primaries together. Next, we added white to create tints of our ‘mud’ and each of the primaries. Finally, we created tertiary colours - a purple, green and orange - from the primaries and then tints of those. The result is a rich, full palette that creates an artwork with harmonious colour. With inspiration from American colourist Mini Chen Ting we then created a small abstract, graphic painting using our palette. I have called mine Two figures.

Two figures - Acrylic on A3 board