A Beginners Guide to Understanding Color

1. Color Intro: Hey, everyone. So in this class we're gonna be talking about color, and so we'll be going over various basic terminology and concepts so that if you've never painted in any specific medium whatsoever, you'll have a basic understanding of what all these terms need in this particular class. It doesn't necessarily matter what medium you choose to paint in. I will be focusing on oil paints is that is kind of more of my specialty. But regardless of oil, acrylic, watercolor, all these concepts apply. And so I'll talk about basic mixing toe a little bit extent. But the majority of the class is gonna be focusing on understanding color keys. And so this is basically going to be a simple way of understanding how to paint various types of pictures on what color really looks like in context. You watch me paint three various sketches of the same subject matter so that you can see the color differences between all of them. And the end goal of the class is really just about understanding how to control your picture in terms of color. And what that looks like at the very end will make some comparisons with the various sketches that we dio so that you can see the differences in color that we discussed earlier . And so I hope by the end of the class that you'll have a much better understanding of how to control your picture so that you can kind of create the moods and feelings that you want your paintings tohave versus, you know, just practicing color charts are things like that that aren't terribly fun. So follow along, and I hope you enjoy. Thank you for watching. 2. Color basic terms: So before we get started in the class, I wanted to go over some basic terminology. So that way, if you've never painted or messed around with color at all before, you'll at least have a basic understanding off some terms and kind of what they mean. So to begin with, I want to talk about the basic elements of color and kind of what they are. And so those are gonna be Hugh value and chroma. And so I'll spend a little bit of time talking about each of those individually so that they make sense. And it's essentially going to apply to everything that we talk about in this class and and throughout the demonstrations, you're going to see these terms repeatedly, over and over. So it's good to kind of get at least some grasp on what they are before we're moving forward. And so the first thing we're gonna talk about is Hugh, And the easiest way to think about this concept is that is, just ask yourself is what color is it? And so in a very in a very sort of basic sense, all we're really be doing is what is the local color of what we're looking at and by local color weaken simply define it as well. Is it a reddish color? Is it a bluish color? And there's always going to be, you know, sort of an infinite number of variations. But if we can't identify what a color is, um, at its you know, sort of core, we don't know how to then manipulate it in terms of the other concepts, like value and chroma. So we have to be able to say yes, this is a red, you know. Yes, this is a blue or whatever. You know, whatever the color is, we have to be able to identify it. And so the next thing we need to talk about eyes, value and essentially all that is is how light or how dark is something. And so, you know, if you've drawn at all before or spent at least a little bit of time drawing, I'm sure you've seen a value scale like this. And, um, this is something they were always asking ourselves. When it comes to shading and modeling, and things like that is, you know how light or how dark something is, and that's essentially what is gonna create, you know, a rolling effect. But in terms of color, this is also very important because it's how we're gonna mix our colors together in various shades, whether we're adding, you know, black or white or what have you. We still need to ask ourselves, is how light or how dark is it? But in terms of color, also to is, as you begin to paint more, you'll find that this is going to become a very crucial element and allows you to kind of play around with color. I think a little bit more freely once you have a good grasp of value and how to keep things together. And so if there's anything that I could emphasize in this class is, value is going to be the most important thing in regards to anything when it comes to color . And so the last element that we need to talk about is Kromah, and so this one is a little tricky because there's quite a bit of variation and there's quite a bit of elements to it. But in a nutshell, we can say that chroma is essentially is how saturated or de saturated is a color. And so I'll talk about these two terms independently so that we can kind of break them down . And hopefully it will make a little bit more sense. And so if we're talking about saturation, what that really ends up looking like is how intense a color is in another way of saying that is, you know, vibrancy. And so if we think about you know, super bright colors or anything like that is that these are all very saturated colors and they don't looked dull or grade out or anything like that almost think of. Like if these were super bright colors, like right out of a tube of paint or anything like that, Um, these are what we would call saturated colors and so D saturation obviously, is going to mean the opposite. But what I would then say is, let's call it a loss of color, and I think the best way to sort of illustrate that would be if we start here with this really chromatic red. You know, this is sort of like a fire engine, you know, Stop sign red. It's a very bright chromatic red. But now, as we start darkening, this red down. It starts to lose color. And so in order. Because in order for that value, um, to shift, something needs to happen. And so, in this particular instance, to get this red darker, it's going tohave toe, lose a little bit of color so that we can change the value. It doesn't mean that the color changed. It's still a red per se. But now the red has been de saturated. Um, so it's not as bright as it once waas, but it's now darker now. Taking this in mind, the opposite is also true. And so if we start, let's say, adding white, you know, to this red and we start getting these pink colors, we slowly start to de saturate the red, but we're also lowering its value as well. And so it's that sort of the easiest way can kind of explain it on. And there's no because there's a number of ways to sort of change of value in a color, and that's something we'll get into in the demonstration about how to do that. But just for the sake of explaining the idea of chroma, um, and the difference between, uh, saturation and D saturation, Hopefully that kind of makes sense and what that looks like 3. Basic Colors: Okay, so to kind of get started, I almost want to be super basic in in terms of talking about color because some people may have never heard these concepts before. And so I want to make sure I cover all my bases. So as we're getting started here, we have our red or blue in our yellow and essentially, these are primary colors. And so what that means is, is that these colors can't be mixed. So if I would take, you know, 123 colors or whatever, I'm not gonna end up with a red, a blue or yellow. And the reason that kind of keep this in mind here is as you start composing a palette and you go out to, let's say, buy, you know, paints or anything like this, you're always gonna have to have these primary colors as a starting point. And so that's just something to keep in mind is there are variations of these primary colors, which are important to keep in mind, and I'll talk about that as we get to talking about specific pigments. But these are starting points in terms of color and will go on from here And so from our primaries, we're going to be adding a few colors here, and these are essentially going to be our secondary colors. And so the secondary colors are essentially mixtures of the primaries, and so you can think about the red and the blue. We're gonna make a violent the blue and the yellow green and the yellow and the red and orange. And the other thing to keep in mind is that the secondary colors are also called compliments, and essentially a compliment is a color that is on the opposite side of the color wheel. So in this case, let's say the red is opposite to the green. But the other thing is when we start talking about color mixing and how we're taking our pigments and kind of altering them, this idea of complementary colors is going to become very important down the road. But that will be another discussion entirely so from our secondary colors, if we take ah, a primary and a secondary and we start making mixtures in between, we end up with these incremental changes in color temperature, and so these are essentially our tertiary colors, and, as you can see here. We basically have a more or less completed color wheel in a very basic sense, and we'll talk about the Carlo wheel a little bit more in terms of temperature. But this is kind of like a baseline to think about as you're mixing colors. And I would even say it's a good idea to maybe if you're just starting out to maybe just have a palate of the primary colors and learn how to mix these colors yourself. And it's not to say that you can't go and buy a bunch of different colors and end up with a very similar color wheel like this. But I feel like there's a lot to be learned by mixing everything together, um, and understanding what that looks like. So again, we'll talk a quite a bit more about the color wheel and what it looks like in terms of temperature on everything like that. But this is just sort of a base to get started from 4. Temperature: So here we have. Um obviously, as you can see, a basic color wheel and you know, this is something I'm sure you've run across to at some point and or maybe some sort of variation of this. And so typically, when you see this, it is going to be, you know, it's a general chromatic spectrum like a rainbow, and you might even see it to where it's divided like this in half. And so on one side we have a cool side, and then on the other side we have a warm side, and there's a couple of things that I want to talk about and have you consider when we're talking about these things, like, you know, warm and cool and and what that really means. And so there's gonna be a variety of ways we can describe it, but I want to just go into a few examples. So the thing is, is when we ask ourselves how warm or how cool is something is. It's relative, and so the easiest way can kind of describe this is saying as a color is on Leah's warm and cool relative to what it is next to and that becomes a big concept as you're painting, because whether it's a background or something in the foreground and what have you, there's all these relationships that have to be considered when we're talking about warm and cool on. And then one of the bigger things to also consider is if you're working on a stained background of some kind. So if your canvas sustained or or what have you is that also affects the colors. And so if we go back to this color wheel again, so we say OK, on this left side, we have a cool side. There's blues and purples and what have you. And then we get to this warm side and we have orange and red and yellow and things like that. But for let's take a look at this a little bit closer and kind of talk about the relativity of temperature. So if I start out here with this blue, I could say, you know, this is a very dark blue. It's, uh, you know, very close to what we would call like an ultra Marine blue. But then, if I put this blue here, that blues a bit brighter and you could say it's almost a cobalt. And so if the blues here are on the cool side of the color wheel, But even though they're both cool per se, the blue on the bottom is actually quite a bit warmer than the blue on the top. Ah, and so it's a relative warmth, but it's something to consider as you're looking at different kinds of colors and as you're mixing colors or looking at different pigments, that something that you want to keep in mind. And so if I take this red here, it's a very bright red. It's like a fire engine stop sign Red, Um, but then now, if I place another red here, you can see that the temperatures significantly cooler than the red on the bottom color wheel tells us that red is warm. And so again, I just wanna reiterate the fact that all this is relative. And so if we start looking at all these other colors here, they may have fallen one side or the other of the color wheel. But their temperature is relative, and so we can have cool and warm versions on either side of the color wheel. And so it really comes down to as we begin mixing colors or if we work on a stained canvas , is that all these relationships are sort of in a constant state off fluctuation, and they can change. Um, and it's sort of upto us toe. Just be very, uh, you know, aware of that. And and relative toe So what we're looking at and how we're observing and just paying extra close attention toe all these little details that are going on. 5. Color Keys: Okay, So before we get started, um, with any sort of painting, I want to just take a little bit of time to talk about color keys. And so you may have never heard this term before, but I'm gonna briefly talk about it. And hopefully, by the end, it'll make sense. And especially in relationship to color, which essentially, this is what this class is about. So we can basically break it down into three categories. And so starting off, we could say we have a high key. And so what that means is, is just think about pictures that are really bright and color and, let's say, fairly saturated. Um, the common theme might be something like that's painted outside, like, you know, like an outdoor painting, like a landscape or figures outdoors or anything like that. And so the next key is going to be just the opposite. And so he wouldn't say Loki. And the best example I can think is sort of if you think about old master paintings and, you know, in a sort of very gray, muted colors and ah, lot of that had to do with the fact that, you know, way back then they didn't really have the same access to the variations of color Aziz painters after them. And so lastly, we would have a middle key. And that's obviously going to be in between both keys. And I would kind of say, a middle key of chroma would be something that you could sort of borrow from the high key or borrow from the low key, depending on you know, what kind of things you wanted to convey with color. So the easiest way is just to show you some examples from some paintings, and that way I think it'll make a lot more sense. And so if we're starting off with high key here, we can say that you know, this this painting right here is a Monet. And so we think of Monet. You think of obviously Impressionism and you know, really bright colors. You know, we have a lot of yellows, purples and blues in this picture, and, you know, it's a very high key picture. Overall, it was painted outdoors. Um, next one here we have a painting by Saraya and again just, you know, outdoor painting. Lots of bright blues and oranges on and such And so we would you know again, call this a high keep painting. And lastly, here this one is by Frank Benson. And so you can see lots of, you know, really high chromatic blues, yellows and oranges on and, you know, quite a bit of white as well. But, you know, great use of color. And so it's a very chromatic painting overall. And so moving down to Loki again, like I was saying earlier, I was we tend to think of old master paintings. So, like this Rembrandt, here's, you know, fairly muted in color. And it's not to say that there's no, you know, not color being used ovary exceptionally in this painting. But it's just compared to what we just saw. The colors here are considerably, you know, gray er and more muted. And so this next one by Velazquez here, um, you know, again, Super high contrast picture lots of grays and blacks and, you know, with little hints of red And but even then the reds air you know, fairly on the you know, I would say greater side not super super bright reds. And last one here we have a carve a geo and again, super high contrast, You know, lots of earth colors. Um, you know, the reds and yellows are kind of leaning towards, you know, being on the brighter side. But overall, the picture itself is so high contrast on And so there's lots of great out, you know, browns and earth tones. And so not, you know, not terribly. Ah, um, you know, high chroma picture by any means. And so lastly, dealing with the middle key, Um, I have a tendency to think of a lot of the naturalist painters. So this painting here by Bouguereau, you know, outdoor, you know, very even lighting known super bright colors. But, you know, not very high contrast either. So it's kind of just in that nice middle range and so very soft, you know, soft lighting, you know, beautiful modeling. Um, but yeah, you know, sort of a middle key. And this next 12 is a bile. A posh, um, you know, again, an outdoor scene. You know, some of the greens are getting a little bit on the, you know, more chromatic side. But for the most part, you know, it's kind of just a nice even temperature, not super high contrast. And I think a lot of the, you know, I I definitely towards liking a lot of French painting. And so, um, I definitely like a lot of these French naturalist paintings like Lapa Zhanbo zero. But, you know, just mostly because I find that the amount of control and they're in their range and, you know, just the drawing is immaculate. But, um, again, you know, it's another painting that's kind of just in the middle. Nothing is jumping out at you from one side or the other. And lastly, here we have one by Sergeant. This one's going a little bit high contrast, especially in context with the background and the bright whites. But chromatic lee, we don't really have, um, you know, I wouldn't call it a low key painting. It's kind of verging toward the low key, but I would still consider it middle key with the relationship of the blues and the reds. Um, and some of the earth yellows, um, in there. So, um, again, it's just a nice painting that is kind of in the middle. Um, you know of the road compared to the other keys that we talked to. And so what does this really mean for you in terms of, you know, making a picture? And all this comes down to in least in regards into color is you know, what kind of picture you know, do you want to make? And and so by thinking, in the terms of color, it would come down to what kind of mood or what kind of, uh, elements with color. How are we going to create that? And what do we want the viewer to sort of feel by using color? And obviously there's a lot of elements involved outside of color in terms of composition and and value and things like that. But a t least in regards to this class, we want to be thinking about how to manipulate colors so that we are creating a specific effect. And so when you see me do the demonstration, videos will be doing very some very simple paintings in high, middle and low key. So that way you can see at the very end the you know, just how different they are in regards to one another. And so, um, I just wanted to at least talk about it because it's I don't think it's something that people think about too much when they're making pictures. Or maybe you've never heard about it before, so hopefully seeing the painted examples kind of makes sense. But, um, I think it will help a lot more once we get to the exercise portion and you can see it being done in front of you. 6. A Basic Color Palette : So after talking about some of the basic color concepts, the important thing to sort of keep in mind is that while all that is sort of good and well is when it comes down to it, we actually have to be thinking about pigments and what that really means to us as we're painting. And so this is just gonna be a short video on essentially just composing a palette. And so I'm gonna talk about a few colors. Um, in terms of something that you might consider a Z, you go to purchase colors or maybe already have some of these. But ah, lot of these colors are gonna be one of them to be using in the demonstration video. And so I'm gonna start with the yellows here. And so I'm gonna be using a cadmium yellow deep, which is gonna be our warm yellow. And we will have then a cadmium yellow lemon, which is a very cool kind of pale yellow. Next is gonna be a cad red vermillion. And I would also substitute Ah, something like a cad, red light or even a cadmium red. This is gonna be sort of the closest that I have, and I just didn't really want to go and buy another color because this kind of suits most of my needs. And so the next color is going to be in a lizard in crimson, and this is a very cool red and actually is quite a bit of blue in it. And what kind of you'll be only very obvious once it's on the palate and you'll see the major differences in it. And so for a warm blue, I have a cerulean blue, if not SARU Lee, and you could always substitute a cobalt blue, which is also a fairly warm blue. But I do like this ruling as there is quite a bit of yellow in it, and it's fairly flexible. And so, lastly, I'm gonna have ultra marine blue here, and this is kind of like a staple blue in most people's palates. I feel like and well, it's, you know, not necessary to have this color to get a lot of it, for It's just a good, flexible color that cool things down quite a bit, and it's fairly versatile. So it's a good color tohave regardless, and so you can see here These are basically all the colors laid out. And, um, pretty much with these colors here we can more or less mix everything that we were talking about previously. So are secondary and tertiary colors can all be achieved with this basic palette. And so the only additions that we're gonna be adding is a is a black and a white. And so in this particular case, I'm gonna have a titanium white ah, and an ivory black. And those air A fairly standard, um, sort of white and black. You I would not recommend zinc white. If you see it. A zits, Not a very good mixer. Um, And if you also see something like a flake or criminal, it's white. While those air great colors, they're considerably more expensive. And so I would keep that in mind as well. And those kinds of lead based pigments are best left for ah, portrait and figure painting for flesh tones. But for a general purpose, white titanium is quite good 7. Basic Mixing: Okay, So I wanted to just show you some basic color mixing because you can see here again. I have my palette that I was talking about in the, uh, sort of color earlier color video. And, you know, we have a couple of options here, so I mean, you can see here we have our basic It almost looks like Carla Wheel except or make some sort of missing. You know, some of these secondary colors, obviously. But nonetheless, I just wanted to show you a couple of things when color mixing, and so this will be a little bit different, Um, when we start going into the actual paintings, but, um, just to get an idea. So for the But they want to. If they've never really played around with color, it'll or anything like that that they can at least see kind of, uh, how things will mix and kind of just the different variations that the paint's will sort of . Ah, make. And so, again, just to reiterate the palate, I have a titanium white, a cad lemon, a cad, yellow deep, a cad vermillion on Eliza in crimson, cerulean blue, ultra marine blue. And then Ivory, black. And so the white and the black are essentially just going to be tenders, you know. And so I'm still dealing with colors here. And then I would use the white and black to essentially make variations of those colors and then onto tent colors. So I just wanted to show as a basic example, though, let's say if if I'm dealing with this cad lemon very super bright, um, yellow here. And so if I were to add, let's say a little bit of Saru lian, you get this really sort of. It's a very bright lime ish green, and so the thing you have to start thinking about is, as you're mixing colors, is it goes back to our warm and cool conversation. So right now I'm mixing with a cool yellow and a warm blue right, and so I kind of end up with this line green color here, you know, and so it's a you know, in and of itself. It's a very sort of garish, you know, green, you know, But so then again, if I take that same yellow and now let's say I mix ultra Marine blue, which is a very cold blue. I get an entirely different green here, and so I end up with this kind of It's a It's a cooler green relative, and I apologize for saying that word so much. But it's so It's so true as you start getting more comfortable with color and you start seeing these patterns is that this green is much cooler in relationship to this screen. But if I were to put another green next to this, it's gonna appear warmer. So let's say, for example, I take that same cadmium lemon. And now let's say I had black because, as you will come to find out, black and yellow make a very nice green, actually, um, and then if if you've seen some of my other classes or my other portrait painting class where I did a limited palate, you know, I used a yellow Oakar, which is a earth yellow. It's a fairly warm earth yellow, um, and black makes such a beautiful green. You get these beautiful olives, um, out of it. So we were just saying, Is that this green? When I mixed, it was cooler than this green, which is true. But now, when I put this green next to this. This green here in the middle, this green in the middle now looks way warmer than this all of color here. And so that's kind of what I mean when I'm talking about the relativity off color temperature is that it always matters what you put something next to, and you kind of start seeing that pattern repeat over and over and over again as you start mixing more colors. Um and so I just wanted to sort of illustrate that, because when it comes time to actually make paintings, um, it's something that we have to keep in mind. And so I want to just show a couple more things with some of the other colors, so that you can see is an example. But hopefully this gives you an idea about where we can start using these basic colors and start shifting them to get what we want out of them. Okay. And so, you know, I didn't want to do a whole video on mixing colors because I feel like, you know, in terms of a basic sense, what you can do is everyone consort of figure this out. Is that the the yellow and the red are gonna make an orange, the yellow and the blue We're gonna make a green, the red and the blue We're going to make a purple and then depending on if you go you know , cool or warm With those colors you'll end up with some variations like you just saw in the green. But what becomes more important is is the relationship of our white and are black because we're not gonna be using these colors out of the tube, obviously. So we need to be able to tempt those colors either lighter or darker, depending on what we're trying to go after. And so the one thing that I would recommend for everyone that's just kind of starting is that rather than, um, you know, trying to ah, use a lot of the colors to gray things down. So, like, you know, sometimes you would hear people say, Oh, well, to gray a color, you should mix its complement, and I don't really find that to be, you know, 100% true. In some instances, it can to an extent, but after a certain point, you start actually just making a new color altogether. And so the best in the easiest way I find, at least for me, is if I need of specific sort of tint of a color is I will actually mix a gray value that I need, Um, so depending on you know how lighter, how dark I need to make a a tent of a color. Oh, mix up the appropriate value and then add that color to it, and that's going to give me a much more accurate gray version of that color. Then it would be to try and use a compliment to to try and achieve that. So because at the end of the day when we kind of touched on this briefly earlier is that the most important thing in your painting is the value structure. So because if the values don't work in that painting, the whole the whole thing, what kind of sort of fall apart the the color itself is sort of, You know, I don't want to say it's unimportant, but it's not as important as your value structure. So, and that's why it's so important to paint in black and white for so long, or it's a practice. Your drawing for so long is that get just get really comfortable with the idea of value. Um And so just for example, here I have this gray and so if I add a little bit of red, I'm gonna end up with some sort of like purplish color, But I get a truer sort of red. I'll go a little bit higher on chroma. I get a truer gray read by doing that. Then if I were to try and mix, let's say, like a green, you know, into that red of some kind. And so it's a very sort of basic idea. But it's one that's helped me a lot when I was having a hard time at first with color and trying to figure out, like how to get, you know, accurate. You know, changes and color tints and how to get more appropriate Grey's of color because odds are depending on. You know, if you're doing a portrait or figure or still life, you're not gonna be using super bright colors. You have to you have to be able to shift the colors in the direction you want on, and I found that by by mixing a gray value first and then adding the colors that I needed. I was able to get more accurate mixtures. You know, that way. Um, and it's something I did for quite a while when I was studying and everything like that. And so, you know, my palate. You know, these days I'm using, you know, a bunch more earth tones that will kind of get me closer to something like this from the get go. But I did this a lot, so I could It was easier to kind of get really accurate color shifts by doing this. And so that's something I would recommend as you're getting started. And, you know, depending on again what kind of painting you're doing and what the subject matter is. And what kind of you know, sort of, you know, color feel you're going for, um, that's something to keep in mind and which you may end up doing is decide is to just make make a few gray values off to the side of your palate, Um, and then have those available make maybe mixed, you know, moderate piles to be a Bill Poole from, um, and then gray down your colors that way. Um, it's totally not necessary. But I find it was really helpful for me when I was first kind of learning this. Um and so it's something I do recommend to kind of get started. Um, and, you know, I said, you know, kind of the basic mixing is gonna be fairly easy. Um, overall and and I'd rather people focus, you know, on doing, you know, quick little short paintings that are simple than trying to mix a bunch of paint and do color charts and things like that. And not that there's not value in doing those color charts. But, um, you know, it's just not It's not that it's not as fun. And and you end up, you know, kind of consuming a lot of paint, which can get kind of expensive, to be honest. So I feel like, you know, just practice mixing. But then also just practice painting. Because if you're just starting off, I think a lot of it is just putting paint on the canvas and then getting used to how it feels. And, um, I know I'm kind of, you know, talking about this in the context of oil painting, but this'll be the same. If I was using acrylic or wash or watercolor or anything like that is, I'd rather just practice making art and then learning color at the same time that make a bunch of squares and then mixed colors toe and sort of fill them in. And, um, again, not that it's not beneficial, but I feel like it's a little bit more fun to actually just do a little bit of painting. And, you know, try and make pictures from the start, um, and then learn as we go. So we'll go into the demonstrations. You'll see a little bit more of this, but it's trying just getting started. I wanted to talk a little bit about the temperature thing again, and then how to gray color So we'll be moving on to the demonstration videos 8. High Chroma: So for this particular example, I'm going to be taking a lot of the colors and trying to make them a bit more saturated than what you see in the image. And so for certain colors, you know, for example, like the gray of the background, I kind of have to choose a color too. Um, skew that towards. So in this particular example, I'm gonna be moving towards a little bit more of a chromatic blue, since Gray in and of itself is fairly neutral and need to kind of move the background into some sort of color direction. And so that's kind of what I chose So moving on into the items in the foreground. Um, you know, as I kind of start putting in some of the shadows, it's it's kind of hard to think about shadows being colorful, but I really just started thinking about what is the local color of, you know. Let's say like the pair, and it's kind of a greenish yellow, and so I'm kind of just gonna take that idea of a local color and try and make it a little bit more chromatic so that I'm sticking with, you know, the idea of making this a higher keep painting relative to the reference that you see above . And so, you know, I could have maybe skewed the pair towards a little bit more of a yellow if I wanted to, but it's kind of in this middle yellow greenish range, So I kind of wanted to take that and, uh, and kind of, I think lean a little bit more towards the green because I think it'll kind of work nicely with the red of the apple next to it. And so you can see that I'm keeping the painting fairly simple. And I'm not overly concerned. Um, you know, with making a beautiful drawing on The idea behind this exercise is to really just focus on the color. And so if he was kind of set up a basic still life like this for yourself, don't get too caught up in making a beautiful drawing or anything like that, really. Focus on the color mixing and keeping things on track with the relative key that you're trying to paint. So I'm not gonna be too concerned with, you know, with details or anything like that. I just want to focus on like, Well, how am I altering the colors that I'm seeing in front of me to make them a little bit brighter? And as you can kind of see in the example like, you know, certain colors that are a little bit more muted, like the table. You know, I'm gonna basically say again, what is the local color? And if it's kind of this brown, you know, sort of a thing that I mean, I'm gonna kind of skewed towards like a reddish orange. Um, and so you kind of just want to think about Well, whatever your painting is, it's It's associated to a color family to some degree, and it's just matter of like, Well, what direction do I need to push that towards, To get it to be brighter or more colorful? Or how do I saturate that color so that it looks, you know, more vibrant? One thing you will notice, however, is that even though you know I'm using some brighter colors by doing so, I'm losing some of the contrast. You know, you still have the like a basic light and dark effect of, you know, light and shadow. But the one thing to keep in mind when painting in the high key is that you will sacrifice some relative degree of contrast because the idea of a super colorful painting also being high contrast meaning a very stark light and dark. Those two things don't necessarily work, uh, together. And so that's part of the sacrifice of painting. Ah, higher key of chroma painting is that in order to have these brighter colors work in your favor, you're gonna have to sacrifice a little bit of contrast. And so you're not gonna get a really strong as strong light and dark effect. Um, you know, and it just comes down to thinking about what kind of mood and what kind of feeling you're going for him as you're making a picture. And so you know. So on the one hand, we gain the sense of brighter color, and that has a feeling in and of itself that can be very pleasing. But again, we're kind of losing some elements of contrast by doing so and so with the apple. And you can kind of see now, you know, in relationship to the pictures that you know, it's starting to look a little brighter. Um, now it's not overly garishly bright or anything like that. But in relative contrast to the to the image, you can see that you know, we have kind of brought up the colors a little bit higher. And so as I'm working on this lemon here, this yellow yellow items in particular are fairly tricky because, um, you know, a even you think about like the shadow here of a yellow objected yellow is kind of heart. It is a very difficult color to get, um, to a higher key because it's already starting off as a fairly bright color in and of itself . And so, in this particular case, the shadow is I could probably leaning more towards a blue or a green. In this case, I kind of chose green because I think it it fits a little bit better with the yellow. And, um, it's again being an already bright object in and of itself. It's not gonna have a super dark shadow by any means. And so, as I'm finishing in this last little piece here, you can kind of see again relative Teoh to the actual still life subject is how much brighter. The overall color scheme is. And, um, again, I'm not really chasing the drawing and really just kind of focusing on on the colors. And and so you'll be able to see once I get to the low key of chroma the stark differences between the two and I'll show those together so that you can see kind of what that looks like side by side and again. Just kind of keeping in mind is that I'm always asking myself what the local color is. And if it's a gray er, kind of more muted colors like how can I make that color, um, a little bit more saturated? And what am I gonna mix so that I can get that effect and then, you know, lastly, again, keeping in mind that I'm gonna have to sacrifice a little bit of the contrast in the image in order to get the color scheme that I want. And so, um, again, it's just one of those things when you're painting in a specific color key, you want to know what you can potentially get away with and what you're gonna have to maybe give up as a result. In and it's just finding a nice balance between the two. So hopefully that made sense and, uh, you know, again, like I said, you'll see the difference once we move on to the lower key of Chroma. 9. Middle Chroma: so working in a middle key here, it's going to be a little bit different than high key that we previously just did. And so, ah, I'm gonna take some of the colors and I'm gonna I'm not gonna de saturate them too much. They're still going to be plenty of color involved. But when you see the low key of chroma painting, you can see that in a direct comparison, these colors will still be a little bit more vibrant. And so even here, starting with the background. You know, even though the background is a grayish kind of color, I'm injecting a little bit more blew into it because you know I can honestly, if I wanted to shift it toward the color, I find that it is helpful rather than just painting. Ah, flat gray. Moving on to the, uh, to the actual still life part, you know, shadows air Still gonna be something that, uh, I'm gonna try and mix a darker color rather than using like, you know, thinking like in terms of like, a tone. So rather than just using a flat brown, you know, or anything like that, I'm still thinking about ways I can inject color, um, into the painting. I'm just not. I'm trying to keep the colors under control so that they don't appear overly saturated or de saturated, and so the majority of kind of the pair here is still kind of in that greenish kind of yellow range. And so I'm still going to stick with that in terms of a local color sense. But it's going to not be nearly as bright as I had painted it in the high key pinking, Um, and you know, there's a few, you know, smaller variations in terms of color temperature. But I'm not, you know, for the most part, um, it's very minimal, and it's still kind of in a very simplistic yellow green range. And the tricky part with again, you know, been dealing with a light color like this is to not add too much white because if I do, it will dramatically cool the picture. And in a lot of cases it would actually lower the key, because why is essentially removing the color from the mixture and making it very cold and putting in a little bit of the table here? I'm still thinking the local color is kind of a, you know, a brown like a reddish brown color. I can't go to write necessarily. So I'm just kind of trying to find an average sort of brown color that looks like it will complement. You know what I'm seeing and getting to the apple here. There's gonna be a very small variation between this painting and then from the high key. So because red in and of itself again is a very chromatic color in general. And so the shift between the keys for this particular color range is probably going to be the most subtle. So I'm still gonna you know, there is still a little bit of range to to kind of play with, um and that would be more in terms of the really bright, bright red notes that might come down just a little bit. Um, but overall, I'm still gonna be working in a fairly small range in terms of red, so there's gonna be very little fluctuation and the color, So I'm just looking for subtle variations of kind of yellow, yellow, orange, you know, and there's a few, you know, just but it's all very small. so that you're not going to see very large jumps and color. Um, you know, for something that's so red over all you know. And if it was, you know, if the apple maybe had a little bit more pattern to it or sort of a marble effect, you know, in the in the coloration of the skin, then then we might see some more variations. But for this particular angle, it's a fairly flat red, so I can't make too many big jumps on color change. Yeah, so just putting in a little bit more of the table. And there's some subtle cut, a color variation in the table, but I don't want to get to detailed with that. So I'm just looking for large shifts in color because there is, um, shadow. And there's some kind of some dust on the table. But, um, you know, I want to keep that fairly simple for the most part. And if you're doing a still life subjects similar to this, I would recommend keeping the surface fairly even and not too too much variation. And so the shadow for the lemon here again is gonna kind of fall into I can easily kind of shift between blue and green. And so I have a tendency to use green for such a bright yellow object because I feel like it just it kind of plays better with the yellow, um, at least to me. And so I'm kind of just putting in a light shadow because it really can't get super super dark in there because a. Because there's reflected light from the actual table. But also to again, it's yellow is just the shadows can only get so dark on such a bright object. And so putting in the yellow again just sort of like the high key is that there's gonna be a very subtle variation in such a bright object on. That's just the nature of yellow in particular as a color. It's like you would never, you know, point out a color to someone say, Oh, that's a really dark yellow is just yellow can only get so dark before it actually changes colors entirely. And so the value range that I'm working in in the particular object is fairly minimal, Um, and so even in the middle key of chroma, everything is still going to stay relatively bright, Um, given the nature of the object, and you'll see much more variation in the lower key when we get to that painting. But but for here, it's gonna be very minimal, so kind of wrapping this sketch up. You may not see a big difference between the high key to this, but once we get to the low key of chroma, I feel like you'll see a much larger difference between the two on. And then I'll make a direct comparison so that you can see all three sketches, um, completed, and I think that it's a lot more obvious. So just kind of keep everything in mind and in terms of how the subtle adjustments of color will ultimately affect how your picture looks at the end. 10. Low Chroma: all right. So for this example, we're gonna be working in a low key of Kromah, and so you'll be able to see the stark contrast between this and the previous high key that we worked on. And again, The overall idea for this type of painting is that we're going to be, you know, sort of de saturating the colors and and greying them down quite a bit more. And so I've kind of mixed a few graze on my palette to kind of make it a little bit easier and to make color, to cut sort of gray down the colors. I need a little bit quicker, and that's something that you might want to do in your own studies, just to kind of make it a little bit easier and kind of like what I was mentioning earlier in the slides is when I when I think of the low key of chroma, I have a tendency to think of, you know, kind of old master paintings where they were very sort of high contrast, and they weren't overly bright color. Um, and but the grays and the paintings are very controlled, and and that's something that we can kind of try and play with when we're doing these kinds of studies, and it doesn't necessarily mean ah lack of color. It just means that we're taking the colors that we see here. And we are going to kind of, you know, gray him down more, even more so than than what is actually being represented. And so I'm still asking myself, You know, what is the local color of the objects that I'm painting? But now I'm taking that into consideration, and I'm adding, you know, some relative grays or some other colors to get them so that they don't appear as bright or is even is accurate. A ZR in front of me. I'm just I'm taking that in mind and and ask myself, Well, how can I gray this down and and mute that color even more so that it fits within the picture? So with this pear here, for example, you know, we saw earlier in the high key of chroma that it's kind of in this yellow green kind of family range. And so I'm I'm still mixing a color that's very similar to that, but you can see it's it's very sort of grayish and kind of its grade down. And that's what happened, sort of with with yellow, with colors in sort of a yellow green family or anything like that. Once, once they start de saturating, they have a tendency to actually shift very green on. And that will be much more apparent when you get to the to the lemon on. And that just happens to be a specific thing with yellow in general. But overall again, you can kind of see in relationship to the image. You know, just how much I'm de saturating the local color of the pair itself, and it still fits in a in a relative value scheme toe What's there but in terms of color have kind of toned it down quite a bit. All right, so that's all filled in. And you know so one thing you'll see that. And I think that's maybe why The reason why I like painting and kind of moral lower key of chrome is that I feel like, at least to me, I have a tendency to prefer higher contrast images in general on, and I feel like I have a lot more flexibility. Overall and it doesn't mean you can't necessarily paint colorfully in on these lower keys of chroma. It's just you have. You can still paint with a fair bit of color. It's just that the color itself is not going to be this rich, you know, kind of powerful vibrancy that you may see in like an outdoor painting or anything like that. But you can still have a very beautiful effect of color, just using very grayed colors. And then and then it becomes more about color relationships in how a piece of paint looks next to another piece of painting. They can have a vibration together, depending on their proximity, and you can still achieve a colorful effect. Um, you know, overall, even in a low key of chroma. All right, so, again, dealing with these shadows, I'm still asking myself, What is the local color of, you know? Let's say the apple here, and so we have. You know, it's essentially a red, but a low chroma red essentially shifts towards a like a richer brown. And so that's kind of what I put in here. And a lot of the red colors in general will kind of shift more towards a brown spectrum, as we sort of de saturate them. And so a lot of the colors here coming out of the shadow will be fairly similar to that, you know, as we get closer to the light. Red is one of the few colors. I think that even in a low chroma setting, it's going to be, um, a little bit. On the brighter side, relative to some of the other colors is an anything in general. The reason for that is that over all, Red is one of the more chromatic colors in, you know, the color spectrum. And so we can have a little bit of of leeway when working with red, even in a low chroma setting. And so it's still, you know, it's still low chroma relative to you know, the actual subject matter. But you know, compared to let's say, like the background, you know, or to the pair next to it, it's still going to stick out. Is being fairly chromatic in relationship. Um, again, it just comes down to, uh, taking what's in front of you and then consciously making a choice to How am I gonna gray this down so that it fits within the right context of the picture that I'm trying to make. And, you know, it's one of those things where you know it. Well, you know, it's always gonna be case dependent depending on your subject and lighting and everything like that. But, um, you know, again, just keep that in mind as you're as you're going all right? There's kind of put the highlight in there, and you very well could decide if you wanted Teoh. Depending on the subject, I could increase the contrast on this even more to sort of exaggerate the light and dark effect. But I don't want to deviate too much from the actual subject matter because I really want to just focus on color. But that is one thing to keep in mind is if you are deciding to work in the lower keys, that you can kind of get away with a bit more in terms of relative contrast. So if I wanted to say, for example, pump up the highlights, you know on everything in the image, I could very well do that, and it won't look out of place because the relative colors that I've painted the objects is going to support that a bit easier. I think that it would if if I were trying to paint in a hierarchy of chroma. Okay, so getting over to the lemon here, like I was saying in the high keep painting, is that yellow is a very tricky color when it comes time to manipulate the range of it. And so even even working in a low key of chroma. Because yellow is one of the brighter colors on the spectrum, it's very difficult to sort of key it down to, Ah, a low Kromah. And so what ends up happening is that yellow will have a tendency to shift to a very green kind of color. And so you can see here is, as I'm putting some of these notes down, is that the yellow kind of shifts to this very dull kind of. It's just on the cusp of being on that green side of the spectrum, and and so that's one thing to keep in mind with, and I think it's really just unique to yellow. Um, is that it kind of depending on how you keep, whether it's higher low, it alters quite dramatically. And so you know, I'm still de saturating the color, but it has it. Like I said, it's taking on this sort of greenish grey kind of color, and that's really the only way I can shift that color so that it will read as a low chroma yellow. So finishing up this study, you can see you know, the relative difference between the actual still life and the way I've muted the colors for this particular painting. And again, it's just asking myself, You know, what are the local colors of the objects, and how can I gray them down so that the colors are de saturated enough? And how that works overall, in the context of the picture that I'm trying to make? And so you know, again, you'll hopefully be able to see the difference between high key and the low key. And, you know, I recommend trying all the variations so that you can get a comfortable idea of how they work. But hopefully this made sense and we'll move on to the middle key 11. Key comparison & Closing Thoughts: So I wanted to take a little bit of extra time just to make a comparison between the high key and the low key paintings in putting some different color notes on top of the painting so that you can see the actual differences. And, you know, maybe it may be a fairly subtle difference overall, but I feel like you, it'll make sense once you see it and so kind. Just putting that one note down. It's kind of a good low, the lower key sort of yellowish brown, and you can see just by putting that on the surface of the painting, you know, it kind of immediately jumps out. And so I'm gonna put down a few more swatches of color just so that you can see what it looks like and to kind of make some sort of relative comparison. And so I'm hoping that you'll see the differences in the little swatches of paint um, that I'm putting down. And it's more about recognizing the fact that the colors, you know, they don't necessarily fit. And so what ends up happening is when you mix a color and let's say you're you're painting in a specific key, and you mix a color, but that doesn't fit. It should essentially stick out like a sore thumb. And so, with this particular high key, you know, sketch that I have here and putting some low key colors on top of it, and you can hopefully see how you know they don't necessarily fit within the context of everything else. Now some of the colors look like they could just barely fit in terms of context in the in this sketch. But for the most part, they really don't, you know. And that's what you want. To kind of keep in mind is, as you're painting, is that too many wrong color notes out of context to the rest of the painting can actually throw off the entire picture. And so it's just something to keep in mind as you're working that you're staying in the relative key you're working in. And so if we move on to the lower key of chrome a sketch, I'm going to place some brighter color notes on top again just so that you can see how garish they look on top, you know, or in relationship of into everything else in the sketch because overall, if anything, the main idea here is to kind of have a sense of cohesiveness in the picture, you know, within the context of color. And so if we have, you know, a specific key that were working in and these colors that we put down our way out of that key it's gonna immediately affect the overall feeling of the picture and look entirely out of place. And what is happening is that the viewer, you know, ultimately is going to be looking at these colors and kind like what happened there. You know, wise, Why is that color note there doesn't doesn't fit in with the rest of the painting. And so again, it's just something to kind of keep in mind as you're working. And I know on some of these, uh, you know, sketches, some of the notes, you know, they look like they can kind of teeter the edge here, and they can kind of, you know, maybe fit in. But overall, in sort of the grand scheme of things, you know, im deliberately putting notes that don't work in this color key. Um and I hope that you can see that, you know, on the, you know, on the video. But, um, you know, again, this is just something to keep in mind. Is as you're working, maybe you decide to have a scrap piece of canvas you know, on the side of of your your panel here or whatever you're working on just to put down color notes before you actually put them in your picture. And that might be really beneficial because you you know, it's not that you can't just, you know, scrape, you know, a wrong stroke off or anything like that. But if you're unsure about your mixtures, you may as well have something to test it on and so that more or less kind of wrap this up . And so I was gonna just show you ultimately the last few, um, you know the sketches in comparison. So we started off with this high key picture. We moved down to the middle key, and then we moved down to a low key. And so I know that there's some subtle variations, you know, overall, but there are drastic differences once you actually start mixing the colors together. And so I really hope that you know, kind of from start to finish. You got something out of this. I know it was a little bit different than maybe what you're used to. Or maybe you've never heard about color keys before or have thought about color in this particular context. And so I hope this was helpful. And then you're able to get something out of it. And please leave me your feedback or any any sort of helpful things that you know you would like to see, and I can hopefully address them for you. Thanks for watching.