Day Twenty Eight - Provencial Lavender Study

Provincial Lavender Study
Oil on Linen Canvas

In today's class we worked with a limited palette using only the primaries plus mixed grays. I am training the students to learn to rely on mixing color using gray. I always have a pile or three on my palette so today we mixed our grays using white and black (or Burnt Umber). Today wanted to try it with Burnt Umber. I love the warm quality of the Umber.

I find that we don't get into as much trouble with greens when we mix yellow, blue and red. Also I like the violet better this way than using it from the tube. While in Provence a few years back we painted the lavender fields everyday for two weeks. I came home with a lot of purple paintings! This one is not overly garish as those were....

I advise my students to mix at least two grays and have them on the palette at all times. There are other ways to do it, but this is just a little pre-mixing and that is a good thing. You can use black and white, or get more subtle color by using complements or just use leftover paint. I will help you achieve the effect of atmosphere, and give you a pop of color when you want to play up the center of interest by using a pure color. It will also assist you in establishing a strong value pattern..
Oh! I almost forgot to tell you, we weren't allowed to use any pure white or black in this study...we mixed up a range of five values of gray and then we put our black and white away!