The Color Wash Method, Explained

"Bus Lane"

Oil on Linen, 16x20" 

Color Wash Method

Here are the medium recipes for the Color Wash Method, as learned from Ovanes Berberian and Brigitte Curt. Please note that either of these recipes create the same effect. 

Ovanes Berberian Color Wash Formula

- I have studied with Ovanes quite a bit over the years. In his workshops he taught us how to use this medium. This has a very special effect on a painting that I love.

You can lay in the under painting using many pure transparent pigments to create a glossy wash of color. You then paint with the opaque paint as the final layer.  See more about this below.

The formula:  He uses approximately 2 parts Damar Varnish, 3 parts Gum Turpentine, and .25 parts Linseed Oil. 

Brigitte Curt's Non-Toxic Color Wash Formula

- I've used this formula for years and I love the effect it has on my works of art. It is basically a less toxic version of the Ovanes' Formula.

The Recipe:  To make this varnish you need to buy Damar Resin Crystals. I order them from Blick by Eco House.  The Eco House brand works best with this Varnish. Also you will need to order the Terpene Solvent and Extra Mild Citrus Thinner from Eco House. (Also at the Blick website, but you may find them else ware.)

Start by poring the varnish crystals into a glass jar that has a lid.  (A mayo jar works well) Pour the Natural Orange Terpene Solvent on top and stir. Put the lid on. Continue to stir and mix a couple of times a day for a few days until the crystals are completely dissolved.

Now add the Extra Mild Citrus Thinner. Stir and store in an airtight container. Use more Thinner for a thin wash or less for a heavier varnish (will be more sticky and shiny).

(The amounts are approximate)

1 part Eco House Damar Resin Crystals

3-4 parts Eco House Natural Orange Terpene Solvent

3-4 parts Eco House Extra Mild Citrus Thinner

*note - lately I have substituted Gamblin Gamsol Odorless Mineral Spirits for the Extra Mild Citrus Thinner for a less smelly varnish.

Use either one of these recipes for the Color Wash Method that came originally from Ovanes Berberian:

• Paint your wash on a clean white canvas using transparent oil colors only, no opaque or semi-opaque paints.
• Start to very loosely block in large shapes of wash, beginning with your darks. Go a shade to two shades darker than you think you should.
• Always compare one color area to another- allow warms and cools within each color shape - keep the values the same in the same shape.
• Always compare the values to one another.
• Sometimes for color harmony you can use the complementary color.
• Lay in warm next to cool and cool next to warm.
• Think ahead about what opaque color will come on top of the wash.
• Stay flat with your wash and use the brush without modeling, an up an down motion.
• The values will be at least one shade darker than the final painting, but the relationships must work in relation to each other.
• Focus on accurate values and color temperatures.
• Use the palette knife to scrape an area if it gets too dark. This will allow the transparency to come through.
• The idea is to allow some of these beautiful transparent colors to show through the finished painting.

Below is a photo of the earlier stage of the painting as I was beginning to add the opaque colors on top of the transparent wash...

Mixing Color

Years ago I taught a Color Workshop, and recently I have been teaching color mixing and how to explore color using a limited palette. So, I've decided to post the notes from the workshop so you can practice it at home (if you so desire).

Color Workshop

I held a one day color workshop at the Capital Art Center at 1200 S Street in Sacramento a few years back, and have decided to post it for any of you who might like to give it a go. It's a great little review for those who have studied color, but also for beginners who need to learn more about mixing color on the palette.

Some of the information I got out of the book, "How to See Color and Paint it" by Arthur Stern. The rest I have picked up while working with Anita Wolff, Brigitte Curt and Jim Smyth. http://www.classart.org/



STEP ONE: THE COLOR WHEEL

Making a color wheel may seem like a waste of time, but it is far from that. While making your own color wheel, you gain the experience of learning for yourself how the color wheel works. It is an amazing tool, when you understand it, and will serve you well if you want to master the art of painting.
In the workshop we used canvas (with gesso), and I used a black marker to draw the wheel before we painted the colors that we mixed onto the wheel. This worked great. Otherwise just use a canvas tablet that is large enough to get a good amount of mixed paint into each piece of pie or just a regular stretched canvas. Paper will not work well and absorb your beautiful colors!

• paint tubes



• palette set up



• mixing colors



• spectrum - The range or scale of colors on the Color Wheel (red, orange, green, blue and violet.

Making a Color Wheel (Spectrum Colors)

*Keep in mind when mixing two colors, you do not use the same amount of paint for each color, you must mix the two until you get the correct hue.

1. RED Mix Cadmium Red Light & Alizarin Crimson



2. RED-ORANGE Cadmium Red Light



3. ORANGE Cadmium Red Orange



4. YELLOW-ORANGE Mix Cadmium Orange & Cadmium Yellow Pale 



5. YELLOW Cadmium Yellow Pale (or light)



6. YELLOW-GREEN Mix Cadmium Yellow Pale and Phthalo Green



7. GREEN Mix Phthalo Green & a lot of Cadmium Yellow Pale



8. BLUE-GREEN Mix Phthalo Green & Phthalo Blue + a touch of Alizarin Crimson + a hint of White



9. BLUE Mix Phthalo Blue & Ultramarine Blue + a hint of White



10. BLUE-VIOLET Mix Ultramarine Blue + a touch of Alizarin Crimson + a hint of White



11. VIOLET Mix Ultramarine Blue & Alizarin Crimson + a hint of White



12. RED-VIOLET Mix Alizarin Crimson + a hint of White

Next we will learn to mix Complements to create beautiful 

neutralized colorful grays!

Edgar Payne Exercise

I studied with Jim Smyth and Brigitte Curt at the California Academy of Painters in Palo Alto California for a number of years. These are two wonderful teachers who changed my life.
Go to their website for the school to see their work and class schedule. http://www.classart.org/classes.html
They also offer a workshop in Provence every year.
Brigitte suggests this wonderful exercise for learning to see and compose the landscape using the Edgar Payne "Composition of Outdoor Painting" book. Click here for the exercise details.
It will be worth your while. If you want to learn to paint in "plein air", or study to figure, it's worth the trip to the Bay Area to paint with them.

Day Five - Avignon

Rhone River Walk
Oil on Linen Panel    6 x 8"

My first trip to France was in 2009. I took a workshop with two of my favorite people, artists and teachers, Brigitte Curt and Jim Smyth. Our group was to rendezvous in Avignon to rent cars and drive to our destination in the more remote villages of Provence.
My first night there I was alone, having spent a wonderful 5 days roaming around Paris before taking the train down to Avignon. I decided to take a walk through the city and just at dusk I came to the Rhone River. Just north of this area is the famous Avignon Bridge (Pont d'Avignon).
I took a bunch of photos of the bridge, cobblestone streets, steeples, and market area. Then I tasted the best gelato in my life!
I'll plan to continue my theme of all things French and share more about Avignon as I paint my way through my French travels.

A Week With Ovanes Berberian

I first met Ovanes Berberian in the summer of 2006. He is a good friend and mentor of Brigitte Curt whom I have known and studied with for several years. She and her husband Jim had spent many hours working with him through the years.
Before this I discovered his work and was in love with it so when they suggested to their classes that they should join them in Idaho for a couple of weeks I jumped on board. It was an amazing experience that changed me. It also was overwhelming and the weeks were intense. I hated my paintings, and felt like a baby learning to walk. Jim and Brigitte told me this going in, but they also told me that what I would hear and see at the workshop would continue to guide my painting for many years to come.
Last November I posted about my trip to Pacific Grove for a weekend of plein air painting with Ovanes. He was much more verbal in his teaching and my brain somehow was able to comprehend it better this time, so I decided to go back to Idaho.
Idaho is beautiful. The vast countryside and skies were begging for me to paint them. However we stayed in Ovanes's yard for a week of plein air painting of these amazing floral arrangements. If I could have I would have stayed another week or two. I was just getting started.
I returned last night from the twelve hour drive. My artist buddy Renee and I took two days and it wasn't all that bad. We decided it was better to drive so we could pack our supplies and it was the right thing to do. I'm ready to do it again!

Anyway, I wanted to post during the week but I couldn't get an Internet connection. The little motel we stayed in, the  South Fork Inn, did have it, but it was down for several days. I want to tell you about my week while it is still fresh in my mind.
The most important realization for me was what I learned about Ovanes. He was so passionate about sharing his love for making art with us it really touched me in a way I don't think I can describe. But somehow I felt that we share that passion. Only he has been able to disconnect from our crazy business that is such a part of our lives. I am right in the middle of it.
Just being in Idaho and away from the computer and the daily obligations of life gave me a taste of what it takes to really be in touch with creating art. It is something close to worshipping our God. I have never before been able to slow down long enough to understand this. I have read about it. I understand it and believe it, but today I get the connection. A wonderful book about this walk with God through creating art is written by a Pastor at my church, "Imagine That" by Manuel Luz.
http://manuelluz.wordpress.com/book/

I'll post more photos and my experience that last week very soon!

Hawthorne on Painting - More Good Stuff

New Painting - "Plein Air Garden, Paris"
Oil on Linen, 20 x 16 "
Available

If you read my blog regularly you know I am re-reading my "Hawthorne on Painting" book again. It is hitting me as though I had never read it before. Maybe I'm just ready to hear it this time.
Anyway, it if filled with so many tips about color and light that I feel I have to share.....

It is divided into sections and right now I am reading from the INTRODUCTION & LANDSCAPE sections:
INTRODUCTION:
pg 18 - Everyone knows what a man looks like, or a tree or a house, but it is our job to tell the world something about these things that it has not known before, some impression that we alone have received.
pg 19 - If you are not going to get a thrill, how can you give someone else one? You must feel the beauty of the thing before you start. Good painting is an excitement, an aesthetic emotion--reasonable painting destroys emotion. Painters don't reason, they do. The moment they reason they are lost--subconscious thought counts.
The only way to learn to paint is by painting. To really study, you must start out with large tubes of paint and a large palette and not stinit in any way as far as materials go. If you look into the past of a successful painter you will find square miles of canvas behind him. It is work that counts, experience in seeing color.
Don't try to be an artist all at once, be very much of a student.
pg 20 - Do studies not pictures. Know when you are licked--start another. Be alive, stop when your interest is lost.
LANDSCAPE:
pg 54 - It's the artist's business, the painter's job to point out to the public the beauties of nature.
Try to see them before you paint. Don't try to see a picture--go around and look at the subject until you see something, say in trees or houses, coming together, that inspires you. We do well the things we see already painted in our mind's eye--don't do it until you see it or you are defeated before you begin.
**Look at the view with your head sideways to get better relations, so that you get a sensation of the color spots rather than a perception of objects as objects.
pg 70 - Realize the value of putting down your first impression quickly.

**It seems like this works like squinting. Also Don Hatfield says to look at the value/color of what is next to the area you are painting in order to find the correct color/value. Very valuable information!

This is the way I want to paint. Some of the teachers I've worked with who talk like Hawthorne are Anita Wolff, Jim Smyth, Brigitte Curt, Ovanes Berberian and Don Hatfield. Wonderful painters all.

Palo Alto Baylands - wonderful painting spot!

Baylands Study 6x8"

Palo Alto is where my teacher Brigitte Curt teaches plein air classes. Allison and I went out yesterday and painted the Baylands, a wonderful marsh area by the little airport there off of Embarcadero Street. Brigitte and Jim have been teaching for 14 or so years in the area. They work as a team most times, and the knowlegde, compassion and passion for teaching shows and is very welcoming.

You must check out their websites:
http://www.classart.org/

http://www.provenceworkshop.com/

I was blessed to go to Provence last summer. I need to get out there and work on my skills with all the plein air opportunities coming up!

Baylands Study 2 5x5"

Just a Few Tips

By doing a few things different while painting, you can save yourself a lot of trouble and who needs trouble when painting is hard enough?  (It's not that I"m an expert on these matters, but along the way I have learned ways to make my life easier.)

It may seem like a small thing but cleaning brushes correctly is going to save your brushes. This goes for me too! If you want your brushes to last, it's important to take the time to keep them clean and conditioned. There are many ways to go about this, and I'm not saying mine is the best but this is how I do it (with very good results):
When I'm painting in the studio I use my brushes starting with the large ones and moving to the smaller ones. When I clean them, I start with the smaller ones and move to the larger ones. When I'm finished painting, I wipe each brush and squeeze out the paint with a paper towel. Then I dip it into the mineral spirits. The first dip (and this goes for during painting also), doesn't touch the bottom of the can. It will get the brush wet enough to get more paint out of it with another squeeze of the paper towel. The next dip is the swish into the tray inside the spirit can. Try to  gently wipe the brush back and forth inside the can to remove the paint. Wipe again with a paper towel. Do this one more time. Now dry the brush with the towel as much as you can to get the mineral spirits off. Mineral spirits, when left in the brush will dry the brush and make it brittle. After a brush gets brittle, the hair will break, and you will be buying another new brush before you know it. If you are going to clean your brushes with soap when you get home, you can put them away. If you are not going to get to it, take another step before you pack up. Invest in some walnut (or other)  oil and dip your brush into it, wipe again with your paper towel. As you wipe shape it and put it away. This will keep your brushes conditioned until you can soap them. When you use soap, use a gentle soap. http://www.brushflush.com/
I use brush flush. It will get paint out of anything and everything, even dried paint. It is very important that you don't let the paint dry in your brush. When cleaning with the soap, dip it into the soap and a little water, suds it up in your (gloved) hand, rinse. Repeat this until there is no more color coming out in the rinse water. Now wipe a little bit of the clean suds onto the bristles, shape with your fingers and lay flat to dry.

I am always trying to find ways to keep my mineral spirits clean while I'm painting. This in turn will keep my painting clean because my paint will stay cleaner. Also, if my mineral spirits aren't too mucked up, my brush will be cleaner and I can paint a brush stroke with clean color.
So let's say I've been painting in my studio, as I'm painting I wipe my brush after every brushstroke or two with my paper towels. I use as many paper towels as I need in order to keep the paint from getting all over everything. It is well worth going through a bunch of paper towels in order to get good results. It does you no good whatsoever to continue to try to use a paper towel if it is covered with paint! So, don't hesitate to throw away your paper towel, even if it is not half way used. You won't be sorry and your paint won't be all over you and your hands. (And everything else!)

It is also very important to keep your palette clean. After I've laid in my painting, I clean my palette. Scrape it with your palette knife, save your piles so you can use them in your painting, and wipe it down. If you need to you can dip your paper towel into your mineral spirits and wipe. A baby wipe works well to, but be careful because it may leave a little residue on your palette. Now you are ready to continue painting. This will save you considerable greif! Repeat as many times as you need. At the end of a session, use your razor blade scraper and scrape down your palette. I move my piles of paint at this point, into a clean area, clean underneath the area where the paint sits, and them put the paint back in it's place. I am now ready for my next session with clean juicy paint (and brushes). Put a lid on your palette. If you don't have a lid, wrap it with saran wrap, tightly. When you get home, put it in your freezer. It will last longer and be fresh the next day.

Photos from July in Paris. Isn't she beautiful? Tomorrow I'm driving to the Bay Area again for my Plein Air class with Brigitte Curt.  http://www.classart.org/  I'm hoping for a good painting day, and I'm beginning to feel like maybe I can really be an artist some day!