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4 things you should know about color before you paint.

Source

1. You need to know what the Primary and Secondary colors are. 
You probably learned this is elementary school but in case you forgot.
Red, Yellow and Blue are your primary colors

Red+Yellow= Orange
Yellow+Blue= Green
Blue+Red= Violet (or purple)

Orange, Green, and Violet are the secondary colors.
The colors mixed in between those are called tertiary colors.

(Note: Just in case you feel like being smart with me I'll point out that we are mixing paint, not light thank you very much. Find out more about mixing light here.)


2. You need to know that color has a temperature
When I think of color temperature I think of orange as the warmest and blue as the coolest and everything else is on a scale in between. Thus red can be warm or cool depending on how much orange or blue there is in it. Same with the other colors. There are other ways to explain this but my brain likes this way the best. If you have something to add feel free to comment below I'd love to hear other perspectives about temperature.

3. Color has opposites 
Look at the color wheel and pick a color. The color strait across the wheel from it would be it's opposite or complementary color. Red and green are complementary colors so are blue and yellow and yellow-orange and blue-violet. Get it?

Also if you mix a color with it's opposite you neutralize Them. This means you get a sort of grey or brown. If your getting muddy colors in your paint and you don't want them, make sure you are not mixing complementary colors. Likewise if you want a more subdued red see what adding green will do.

4. You need to know what a "shade" of color really is.
We often say "a shade of red" if we mean it is a red color but not red red, but that is incorrect use of the word.

Shade actually means a color that is mixed with black. So a shade of red would actually be a darker version of red like maroon.
A Tint is a color that is mixed with white. So pink could be considered a tint of red
A tone is a color mixed with gray. I don't have any color examples for this. Any ideas?

For more about color theory there is some pretty good stuff on Wikipedia. If you have any questions about what I've said or have anything to add that has helped you in painting with color leave me a comment.

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Audiobook Recommendation: A Drowned Maiden's Hair

Hey blog reading friends. Today I just wanted to recommend this book/audiobook to you. Why recommend it on a blog about illustration? Well, when I'm painting or drawing I love to turn on a fun audiobook. This book is for younger readers but I really enjoyed it, twice.

A Drowned Maiden’s Hair
By Laura Amy Schilitz
Performed by Alma Ceurvo
9 hours



An 11 year old orphan Maud Flynn is adopted by three older ladies that insist she be their secret child. Maud can put up just fine being a secret for because she gets own room, and indoor plumbing, and many other luxuries she never had at the Barbary Asylum. Soon she finds out her roll in the house is to help con people out of their money by aiding Hyacinth with phony seances. How long can she fight her conscience to keep her new life?

This book is set in the early 20th century and shows an interesting view of life in that time. It's a fun story and full of imagination. Once you start it's hard to turn it off.

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Ruby and the skateboard updates every Tuesday and Thursday.


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Peek behind the scenes of my new website

Hi all,
I've been working away on my plans for the new website that I am building and I wanted to share a bit of it with you. Above you can see a sketch for my new town which will be featured on the website. I hope it will be a place mostly for kids with fun things to download and how to draw movies. I'll also be able to share more about me and my books.

I'll post some more sketches for the site below in hopes you'll get a little excited about it.

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On Art and Ears

"Draw from life" 
...is a phrase that every kind of artist, weather writing, dancing or drawing hears as they lean to create art.

It generally means that as we create art we need to see the life around us and put in what we create so there is truth in the stories we tell. Then people can relate to it, understand it, and probably love it.

But I want to talk about "drawing from life" in a slightly more literal sense.

A Memory
When I was in college we often had professional artists come to visit to teach us stuff, be cool and generally inspire us with the awe of what we could become. One of those was Walter Rane. It's safe to say he is my favorite artist today who paints religious themed paintings. I recommended giving his site a look

As part of his visit he attended my figure drawing class and drew with us. I remember the moment I sneaked up a little ways behind him with my friends and had a look at his drawing. He had chosen a spot to sit that gave him a view of the model's back, and  more importantly the back of her head. This is a place that we as students probably had shunned wanting to draw interesting things like the face.

I remember looking at that drawing and seeing how he had drawn the back of the model's ear. It was amazing! In that moment I realized that even though I often drew while looking at the model I let my brain fill in the pieces it wanted to with out really seeing the full of life details that were right in front of me. I was drawing ears from my head. Lame.

This Sunday
I was at church drawing the people around me. Something I often do as I listen, but this week I decided to focus on certain details. I started with hair and moved onto ears. That's when I remembered my ear experience from college. I don't know how well I've applied this lesson to my art. I hope I can do a much better job "drawing from life" as I move forward as an artist.

Here is the sketchbook page from Sunday

"Draw from life"
For the visual artists the phrase has two meanings and if we take full advantage of both of them I think we can't help but create amazing art.

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