To continue on the same topic of my last post this time I am going to talk about how as an artist you can train yourself to see subtle changes in value. This is very important if you want to draw and paint realism, since it is the most important factor that allows you to create a three dimensional illusion on a flat surface.

In a sequential way of teaching usually students wanting to learn to paint realism will need to master their drawing skills using graphite and later on charcoal. In my opinion charcoal is a better and easier to manipulate than graphite for this purpose. However with both media one is only dealing with black and white (usually of the surface) and so one only needs to control how light or dark the application is...known as value. When one moves to colour this becomes more complicated as it is not easy to see value in colour and besides that another factor becomes part of the equation..known as chroma (saturation or intensity).

So before moving to color one can use black and white paint to render tonal studies from casts. Using a white cast is the first step since one can clearly see all the elements of the effect of light on form, that are highlights, mid-tones, form shadow and cast shadows. And you can accomplish this by simply mixing various shades of gray starting from at least 5 main tones and then intermixing these together to create the intermediates as you progress and you realise that actually there are much more variations in tones than you first observed.

Doing it from life rather than from a photo is better because our eyes are sensitive to an unlimited range of values to which the photographic camera is not sensitive enough and hence not able to capture. Beside that painting from life gives you more skill to measure proportions accurately.

The image above shows the setup, where I hanged the cast on a black board standing on an easel and I positioned my working easel to the right to the front. The illumination was from the light at the top on my painting easel. I used an averaged light colour temperature from 2 LED tubes (4000K and 6000K). At the front of the cast I hanged a plumb line which helps me to align myself to the same view point to the cast at all time. As paints I used Mars Black (Langridge) and Flake white replacement (Gamblin). Please note that in the photo the angle and position of the camera were different from my eye level. It took approximately 6 hours to finish this small study (15 x 20 cm).

One of the most difficult tasks for any artist that wants to paint realism is to get the right values. Without getting the right values, painted objects will remain flat. Value change in colour is what gives the illusion of form. Certain colours have a high or low inherent value, that is naturally they are either dark or light.

In order to start seeing value changes and mix colours of the right values one needs to first understand the basic concept of how light affects various shapes. Starting from simple geometric shapes one can move to more complex objects. One needs to train the eyes and brain to see these subtle changes in values sometimes not that obvious to the untrained eye especially when it comes to light coloured objects. There are various ways how you can check yourself while painting to see that you are mixing the right colurs of the correct values, or to check whether you have the right values on the canvas. The easiest way to do it is to move back and to look at the canvas from a distance. Most of the time you will immediately observe a darker area that looks odd when compared to the adjacent values.
The other way is to move back and squint at the painting and objects. Squinting your eyes will filter the amount of light entering your eyes and the colours in front of you will become grey and hence easier to judge their values.
Another way which works for me is to compare to a grey scale. You can prepare one yourself from your own paints and keep it as a reference. When doing a still life like above I place the grey scale next to the object and compare the darkness of the coloured object with the scale. By squinting you should be able to judge well. I compare in a way like bracketing in a camera, where I compare to a lighter and a darker tone to confirm the real tone. With time your eyes will immediately judge the values correctly. Taking a photo of the finished painting and converting it to black and white using software will also help you to check your values. Both the apple and the landscape were checked in this way.
Finally if you want to develop a sensitivity to colour and to judge values (and chroma) correctly when mixing paint you will need to do a number of exercises using simple still life objects and trying to match the exact colours as you see them. Even half an hour every couple of days should be good enough. You will be amazed how the body quickly learns what to do.

Today I wanted to share with you some comparison tests that I did on various paints I have in my collection. One of the most important characteristics of paints that reflects the quality of that particular paint is its tinting strength or else the ability of that paint to retain its colour after the addition of white to increase the value of that colour.

In the first set of 12 squares at the top I tested four kinds of white paints I use in my paintings mixed with Ultramarine blue from Gamblin.
Column 1        zinc/titanium (Gamblin)
Column 2  titanium / lead (Michael Harding)
Column 3       Zinc / lead (Old Holland)
Column 4      Flake white replacement as titanium white (Gamblin)

The first row shows each white directly from the tube. As expected Zinc/titanium in Row 1 column 1 is the coolest white compared to the ones containing lead.

Row 2 is 75% white and row 3 is 25% white.
Important to note that I mixed equal amounts of paint from each tube.

 Ultramarine Blue retained its best vibrancy when mixed with zinc/lead mixture in column 3 even when mixed with 75% white. Second best was Flake white replacement. Worst was with zinc/titanium mix in column 1.

In the second set of 12 boxes at the bottom I used zinc/lead white from Old Holland and mixed it with 3 ultramarine Blue from three different brands, Gamblin, Old Holland and Michael Harding.  Best tinting strength was observed with Michael Harding and worst for Gamblin.

Going back to the whites I used in the first testing my approach when painting is to use a fast drying but more flexible white (especially on stretched canvas) for the lower layers of a painting and for this the best choice is lead white/titanium mix from Michael Harding with linseed oil as vehicle. Then I usually switch to flake white replacement (Gamblin) for most of the rest of the painting. This kind of white is also manufactured in linseed oil, it is very thick in texture and retains the vibrancy of the colours mixed with it. It also dries very slowly. If in some cases I need to push a colour to a very high value without loosing its vibrancy and making it look chalky (very common when using titanium white) I will then switch to a mix of zinc / lead by Old Holland. However, since lead dries very quickly I delay its drying time by adding walnut oil into the paint.

Simple colour studies are important to train yourself to see and mix colour using paint. This is even more important if you want to paint realism. Landscape painting is not the best platform to do so, unless you go painting outdoors, something very difficult to do if you are a beginner. The reason is that landscapes are very complicated as one needs to take a lot of care to distance and light effects that varies a lot.

In the studio you are in full control of setting up the subject and most important you are in control of the light. So usually I try to pick up a simple subject like a fruit that is not too complicated in shape and I just stage it in a dark shadow box with a single light on it. The canvas is next to the object and to help me with drawing I use a view finder with a grid, the same size of the canvas. The next step is to look at the object and identify the hues, in this case there were green and red hues. I then chose the paints to use to manage to mix those hues. The palette consisted of cadmium scarlet, permanent alizarin, ultramarine blue, cadmium lemon, burnt umber and white. The next step was to determine the range of values using a Munsell scale by identifying the darkest and the lightest spots in the painting. Unlike what one expects, the brightest parts in the highlight were only mid-range on the value scale. So obviously the rest was darker, in all identifying like 5 steps. I used a colour checker to check my colours and values, comparing my paint to the real object. When I was happy with the hue of mid range value, I started adjusting the value and chroma step by step and laying the paint where it belongs on the canvas starting from the very dark canvas and moving on to the subject.

Today I am going to talk briefly about my current palette of paints that I use for most of my work. The artist palette always evolve with time and hence my current selection of paints is based upon not only my needs to create the actual painting but also on background knowledge about pigments and paints. Knowing about what actually is in your paint tube is important for two main reasons. Paint manufacturers, like any other kind of manufacturer, are always looking at making profits and to do this they are very creative in creating as many paint tubes as possible for you to buy. This can be overwhelming especially for a beginner painter, to go to the art store and you face a never ending variety of paints and colours. The reality is that you do not need to buy that many colours and most of those colours you see are actually made up of combination of the same basic pigments that you can easily prepare yourself on the palette. So one needs to have a look at the label and check the pigment numbers and ignore completely the fancy names sometimes given on the tubes. Pigment numbers are standardised and hence they should be the same for a particular colour irrelevant of the brand. There are also certain pigments that are very unstable and negatively affected when exposed to even normal day light, and some of these are very popular and expensive. Manufacturers still produce them as there is still high demand for them, since most artists do not have the knowledge to know what is in the tube.

Since I paint mostly landscapes my basic palette is made up of a selection of paints coming from the traditional master painters as well as impressionist artists. I find this combination to give me a wider range of colours that I can mix from them. As a quality of paint I always use artist grade paints that contains only pigment and oil with no additives. My preferred brands are Michael Harding, Art Spectrum, Old Holland, Gamblin, Langridge and MasterClass.

My basic palette consists of:
Ultramarine blue deep  PB29
Cadmium yellow light   PY35 (still my preferred yellow although I occasionally use Arylide lemon PY3)
Permanent Alizarin Crimson (this is the permanent alternative to alizarin crimson) I also replace this with Quinacridone magenta PR122
Burnt Umber (Michael Harding as I find it to be very dark compared to other brands)
Burnt Sienna
Indian Yellow (Masterclass as the pigment PY83 is very stable)

The above colours (plus white) are enough to produce a wide range of mixes to paint most realistic paintings, still life and portraits. For landscape painting I have an extended palette of paints that I use to a lesser degree but that are useful to expand the variety of colour. Here they are:

Yellow Ochre
Lemon yellow (Michael Harding since this is the only company that prepares real lemon yellow)
Indian red
Phthalo Blue
Cadmium scarlet
Phthalo green (I replaced viridian with this one since it has a more intense colour)
Cadmium orange (that I find slightly warmer than the scarlet and hence better for highlight)
Blue Black (very rarely used)

As white I use three kinds:
As a basic white I use a blend of titanium white and zinc white (from either Gamblin or Norma) This is a relatively cool white with a very soft texture.
I also use flake white replacement by Gamblin that is thicker in texture and warmer in tone. However this is titanium white in linseed oil which gives the yellowish tone.
For the main highlights I use a mix of lead and zinc white prepared by Old Holland that is warmer in colour and thicker in texture. I usually reserve this to mix with highlight colour.
I always keep a tube of pure titanium white to add if I need an opaque white to create mist etc.

Getting or finding a space is not that easy however even if it is a small corner in a room that is already a big step forward. And why is it so important to have a dedicated space to practice your painting? Yes it is important because you will need to practice your art without any distractions, and when I say distractions I am not only referring to those from other family members but also from the simple fact that when you feel like in the mood to paint you will want to find all the tools that you need ready to start painting. This is important especially knowing that time is limited and hence if you find half an hour free to paint you do not want to waste half of it setting up and then packing again when finished. This will eventually kill your mood and inspiration.

If you are very limited in space a small table in a corner of a room will be good enough to at least practice your art regularly. The most important is to have the essential needs with you and these are:

1. An vertical easel to place your painting surface on.
2. A space to hold your palette, brushes and paints
3. Sufficient light preferable similar to daylight.

It is very important to have the palette located either directly in front of you or else slightly to the side but without having to turn too much to reach. I usually use another easel to hold my palette so that it is also in a vertical position to avoid a lot of glare from the light, Recently I also installed a monitor on one side of the easel onto which I can see my reference photos, when I am using references. If working on a still life I will want my easel to sit next to the still life itself maximum distance not more than a meter and a half. On one side of the easel I have a table with all other tools I need while painting including brushes, palette knives etc. 

Lighting should be located high up almost just above (but at the front) of the canvas. Never have your light source coming from the back as this will result in glare on your painting and also you will cast a shadow on the remaining of the canvas. Ideal lighting should have a color temperature of 5000 - 5500 kelvin (k) and so be neutral in color. Working in yellowish light can seriously affect the colors that you mix for your painting.

​In other areas of the studio I have shelves with materials and media that I use for painting, framing and still life props. I have a small storage for canvases, shelves for drying canvases and a table where I do varnishing and other tasks from time to time. I also have a space where I can photograph artwork.

Artists usually look at pigments not only as a color but also for its qualities and characteristics. One of the main characteristics that distinguishes paints is transparency. There are opaque, semi-transparent and transparent paints. This information can be found on any label of artist grade paint, whether these are oils, acrylics or watercolor. 

Transparent paints are those consisting of pigments that allow light to pass through them and hence they can be used to build up layers of color using a technique known as glazing. Most of the paints old masters used to have available were transparent paints and that is why most of their paintings were done using glazing. 

Transparent paint also recedes and hence it is good to use if you want to create distance or the illusion of a glow in the sky. On the other hand opaque paints appear to be closer to you and when used together one can get a good sense of distance and perspective.

Although transparent these paints usually have a very strong staining color.

Here are some examples of transparent paints:
Yellows: Indian yellow, Australian red gold (AS)
Reds: Alizarin Crimson, Genuine Rose Madder, Permanent rose
Blue:  Pthalocyanine Blue
Green:  Pthalocyanine green, Viridian
Browns: Transparent red oxide

It seems to be logical that in order to produce a good product (in our case a painting) that not only looks good from the artistic perspective but also lasts longer, one needs to know the quality of materials being used as well as what one is able to do with them. It is the same like saying that you want to play a piano but you do not have an idea of the sounds of each note. This is very important when it comes to selling artwork and you want to build up a reputation with clients. When going to the art store you might become more confused and lost in the ever increasing amount of products for sale and if you become over excited you might end up buying and spending money on things that either you do not need or else that are not of a good quality

Personally I give importance to primarily two things, the surface on what I paint and paints. As a surface I always prefer to use either cotton canvas or linen. Both of these need to be primed with a good quality primer. Most of commercial ready made canvases found in the stores are primed with what is known as "acrylic gesso" which most people think that it is gesso, however in reality it is not. This is simply an acrylic polymer and it might work well for painting with acrylics but it is not ideal to work with oils on it.  Real gesso consists of a glue such as rabbit-skin glue, chalk and other materials. Sometimes you will encounter problems like the paint seems to dry up on a badly prepared canvas or as if the the brush doesn't want to move on it. To avoid these problems you have two options, one is to buy oil primed canvases or else to re-prime it with an oil primer. The best oil primers are those based on lead, and it is the best because lead is flexible when dry and hence does not become brittle. It is also important to know that most of the commercial canvas panels have a life-time of approximately 20 years, so these might be good if you are a student and want to practice but not as good if you want to sell your work and want it to last.

The best way I found for myself to ensure quality of my paintings while at the same time enjoying the painting process is to prepare my own surfaces. By this I mean that I stretch my own canvases and preparing my own canvas boards. Most of the time I use linen that is primed for oils, to use for my landscape paintings. The good quality of the surface is nice to work on and allows me to be more creative in my techniques. To prepare canvas boards I usually use MDF board and PVA (archival grade) to stick the material. 

Good quality paints must also be of a priority if you want your work to last and also if you want to avoid more frustration when painting. Painting is already quite a difficult process leading to a lot of frustration and obviously we do not want to continue adding more difficulties by using low quality paints and surfaces. When it comes to paints, always buy artist quality grade and avoid buying student grade. Artist quality paints have more pigment in them and hence they are more intense and in the long run more economical then buying cheaper options. Always check the label and make sure that you have a pigment code (example: PB29) and an ASTM. If these two are not there so it means that paint is not of a good quality. Look at the lightfastness and make sure that you will have ASTM 1 or maximum 2. Paints that are not lightfast will fade within couple of years sometimes even months. A pigment that fades very quickly that is commonly used and that it is very expensive is alizarin crimson. It is still sold because there is demand for it as artists usually are not aware of these characteristics and they only look at the color and not the actual quality of the pigment. Permanent crimson was a recent improvement on the original crimson and it is permanent (Lightfast ASTM 1) as its name implies. You do not need to buy the most expensive brands to start with but at least start with an artist quality paint. Also you do not need to buy a lot of colors, you can easily work using a limited palette. For example the following palette will work well for most applications: Titanium white, cadmium yellow light, permanent crimson, ultramarine blue, phthalo blue, burnt umber and cadmium scarlet. If you want to paint landscapes you can add yellow ochre, Indian yellow, burnt sienna and Naple's yellow. 

Oil paints and even more acrylic paints, tend to darken with time and this is something that no one can do anything about it. Both natural and artificial lighting affect colour and hence it is very important to advise the buyer of your work about these issues and not to hang the painting exposed to direct sunlight or in places with high humidity.

For today's short talk I chose the subject of light and color. Why are these two so important for artists and non artists alike? Color is all around us. As humans we associate different colors with moods and we also have our own favorite colors. We are also lucky that we can see a range of colors with our eyes or better to say with our brains. I am saying this because our eyes are only able to detect red, green and blue in the visible spectrum. The rest of the colors are only interpreted by our brain and hence we do not see them with our eyes.

What is color? To start with color in itself does not exist. Isaac Newton in 1700's described how white light coming from the sun contains all colors of the spectrum as seen in a rainbow. We also know that white light contains other components that our eyes are not able to detect but other animals and insects might also be able to see, such as ultraviolet (UV) or infrared. We see a colored object as red because the surface of that object is reflecting red light into our eyes after being struck by white light. That same object absorbs all the other colors. The colors that our eyes capture are red, green and blue (RGB) same as used in colored TVs and monitors. So we see yellow because our minds create yellow by combining red and green together and yellow happens to be in between these two colors even in the rainbow. The same is cyan, it is a combination of blue and green. The strangest color is actually magenta, because it does not even exist in the rainbow, but it comes out when combining blue and red light. 

We are able to see colored objects only thanks to the presence of white light from the sun or any other light source. We cannot see objects in full color if we do not have light, like at night. In this case we can only see shades of grey, unless the object is really close to you and you have some degree of light

So how does this concerns us as artists? Understanding color and light is always a challenge for artists when they come to paint an illusion of light using paints. Throughout the time artists, and now a days paint manufacturers, always struggled to discover new pigments that can be used to create various light effects in a painting. It is a challenge because we want to reproduce an illusion of light using a material (paint) that actually does not give off light in itself but on the contrary it absorbs white light and reflects only a portion of it. 
 
Here we come to the famous color theory. In the old school we were always taught that the three primary colors are yellow, red and blue. However with the advance in science and a better understanding of light, we now know that this is not completely correct. We now know that we can have different primary colors for paints and for light itself. If we had to take the three primaries of light, red green and blue and try to use them to mix up paint we will end up with different colors to those obtained when mixing light together. If we had to mix green with red paint we will end up getting something close to black instead of yellow, as we get when mixing light. So it will be wise if we take the products of mixing light i.e. yellow, cyan and magenta and use these as primaries when mixing paint. This is known as subtractive color mixing and is now used by modern computer printers to generate every possible color using a system known as CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, black). Because one cannot mix magenta and cyan out of paint, these two colors are also very difficult to produce as pigments and hence not all manufacturers are able to produce them as a pure color.

In my classes I try to emphasize the importance to understand the basic concepts of color in order to be able to mix colors efficiently. My aim is always to try to teach students how to see color in everything and the only way to get your brain trained to see color is by observation from real objects. To paint realistically one needs to train him/her self to see color and not perceive it.​

White Paint
 
For artists white is one of the colors that is used all the time, since it is needed to mix the various tints in a painting and to alter the value, thus adjusting of how light and dark we want a color to be. A lot of artists use it to highlight bright areas in a painting, however sometimes obtaining very unsatisfactory results. We need to look at white paint not only as being white in color but also at its characteristics as a paint. What I mean is we need to understand the physical properties of these pigments and why when we go to the art store we find different whites on their shelves that all look white in color. 

Titanium White: This is the most commonly used whites that is relatively cheap in price. It consists of pigment white 6 (PW6) that is an inorganic synthetic opaque titanium dioxide. It is considered to be non-toxic and slow drying compatible with most vehicles including oil, acrylic, alkyde and pastel. It is the most opaque of all whites and its high tinting strength can be a disadvantage when mixing with other colors especially transparent colors.

Zinc White: Made up of PW4 or zinc oxide, that is less opaque than titanium. This kind of white has less tendency to change in color when compared to titanium however it can become very brittle and susceptible to crack. So because of this reason it is not advised to use zinc white as the primary white in your paintings. Chinese white in watercolors is actually zinc white. A number of manufacturers are now producing tubes consisting of a combination of these two kinds of white sometimes suspended in safflower oil instead of linseed that has a less tendency to yellow with time.

Flake white: Also known as lead white consists of PW1 or lead carbonate mixed with lead hydroxide. This is the most expensive kind of white, also notoriously known for its toxicity. However it is not more toxic than any cadmium paint. One needs to keep in mind that intoxication can occur when inhaling or swallowing paint and not by absorption through the skin. This is the traditional white used by the old masters and by a large number of professional artist. It is the best white because although it can alter the value of a color it does not make the color look chalky, hence it retains the color strength. It is also more flexible when it dries on the canvas and hence less prone to crack.