In my quest I have decided to dissect a painting into shapes almost like a mosaic of color. I wasn't concerned about tone, value or temperature as is conventionally taught...Just color.
Traditionally when you examine color it always gets related back to the median tone; for example a cadmium red middle and then every other value is either darker or lighter then it. You would then mix this color with an appropriate light or dark color to make an art school 10 point value scale chart. Furthermore a color would be examined according to the ambient light source, and adjusted for temperature accordingly.
However a simpler approach to painting color has been used for generations but has largely been abandoned or forgotten today. This approach, made famous by the plain air painters based in Provincetown, Massachusetts, molds every color in major then minor variations. Their approach to painting is based upon color contrasts and not value contrasts. To commence a painting the observed mass colors were stated with chromatic strength and then modified several times to get the visual color relationship as close to the subject as possible.
In painting this way there really is no reason for developing of a value study or a warm cool under painting as I usually do..., In the words of famous plain air teacher Henry Hensche: " In value painting the value can be absolutely correct and the color still be totally wrong; in color painting if both masses and variations of color are correct values are automatically correct." For anyone interested in reading his whole book that deals with his color methods in details here is the link:
I’m not saying that I am changing my approach to painting but it certainly is unique trying to paint a new way and did I mention a whole lot of fun. A small study painted in about an hour on lineʼn as usual.
