ANNOUNCEMENT:

• Our newest Academy Master Course--Exploring Tertiary Colors-- is 1/2 price throughout May. Check it out HERE!  

• Join us tomorrow, May 25 at 2 p.m. Eastern for our monthly Live Chat on YouTube.  The topic is How Shapes Change Shapes.  (Yep, that's a thing!)

Enjoy this refurb from five years ago!

In our neck of the woods, Spring has brought an abundance of nature's colors.  Even though some of these seem brilliant, they contain that inherent feeling of quiet we seek in nature. Artists search for ways to communicate that quiet while expressing those colors. 

A master painter of interpreting nature's colors is Richard Schmid. Why don't we see if we can get some clues as to how he did that in his painting, Diana's Maple. 

BEFORE WE DO THAT... 

Let explore what we're looking for:

You know that a hue that is fully saturated is one many artists call high intensity or high chroma.  (Both words are used.)  The outer band of the wheel below is fully saturated.  The disc in the center of the wheel below has zero saturation, or is totally neutral.  In the rows of this wheel is a gradual progression of each hue from full saturation to zero saturation, or totally neutral.  

Now, the question is this:  how many of those fully saturated hues do we see in nature, and how does Schmid interpret saturations in this painting?

NOW TO SCHMID

Looking at this painting, we perceive lively colors--nature's colors.  But do you see a fully saturated hue among them? 

Here's a wheel of fully saturated hues to help you compare in your search. 

In the split wheels below, I've taken out the fully saturated row and left the degrees of desaturated hues.  As you examine those hues, you will discover that Schmid's palette of colors for this painting is made up of all non-saturated hues, in varying degrees of neutrality. (Some are darker, some are lighter, but remain neutralized.)

Just as a side, notice how harmonious these colors are.  That's right, the more neutralized the hue, the more harmonious it is with other colors. 

Isn't that about the coolest thing we can do in painting?

Light and Shadow: The one thing that lets our eyes see.
Visual Movement: What our eyes do when images are visible.
Seeing Beyond the Image: The possibilities beyond just describing what our eyes see.
Freeing the Artist Within (Curiosity): Finding our individual interpretation to what our eyes are seeing. 
Composing:  Finding ways to put together all that we discover.
Drawing:  Searching the potential of images.
The Craft:  Continually forging our skills to visually communicate what we continue to discover with our eyes, mind and soul.

And the eighth:

The Art:  The results when all the above are working together.