The key to colour

[@kristiinasakai9957]

Allison, this is an amazingly eye opening video; after years of painting and art school decades ago, you have managed to present one of the most important and often neglected aspect of color in an extremely clear and understandable, and fun, way. I enjoy all your videos and I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for all your work and so generously sharing it. ❤️☀️❤️

[@alisonwatt8570]

Thanks Kristina! So happy you found this useful.

[@ViolettaBorigard]

Thank you for great inspiration! 💛💙

[@johncarmanarts]

Interesting there are so few comments and views on this video. Everyone wants to know more about color and it is usually the most difficult aspect of art to start to understand for new would be artists. Yet you present the most important basics of it in this simple, succinct video. As someone who has recently immersed myself for the past few months on everything I could get my hands on about understanding color as it applies to art, I have learned enough to appreciate that this exercise is probably one of the most useful, fundamental exercises someone could undertake to understand color and how to apply it to art. When I first began my art education journey I wanted to paint pictures but found it a total mystery how great artists could come up with the colors they used in beautiful paintings. And colors that harmonized. Yet early on I would never have appreciated the value of this type of basic exercise you presented. I think this type of exercise along with creating paintings with a three color limited palette are the most important thing a new artist could do to start to understand color. For example take three values of one dark color-say burnt umber-and make your picture. Or use charcoal. If you can’t create the forms with monotone don’t even bother with color until you can. Then once you creat you picture in monotone, take two colors or three colors of paint of that fit into the complement or say split compliment theory of the color wheel. Add white and possibly black and you cannot help but have a harmonious picture if you duplicate the values of your monotone using those three colors. And take into account with those three colors that cools, grays, sharp edges, and less value contrast recede and warm, more saturated, sharpe edges, and greater contrasts advance and you have all that you need to paint beautiful paintings. It is such a simple concept but something so few art instructors and books teach in a straight forward way. I spent years knocking my head against the wall with respect to the color aspect of these basics. Your instruction is some of the absolute beat I’ve seen. I only wish I had a mentor like you several decades ago.

[@alisonwatt8570]

Thank you so much--for watching the video so carefully and for responding so fully! If you don't mind, could I copy and paste into my Facebook private group: Artwork Artplay. Maybe it will inspire some members to give take this exercise and improve their painting practices.

[@alisonwatt8570]

Also--I appreciate your succinct and powerful paragraph on an exercise in value and 3 colour mixing!

[@alisonamacher]

Such a helpful exercise!

[@houdini840]

I am not an artist but I enjoy learning the different elements, and how artists work with them. This video helps me understand a more of why colours work together. I never realised that what makes a colour the "neutral" is that they come from the mixing of the primaries, so unites the paint colours..Very interesting. Thanks for the demo.

[@janerogers5717]

Sooooo useful, thank you. As well as collage will be helpful to decide on colour palette and mixes to use before committing paintbrush to paper for say a landscape. Your videos are great.

[@alisonwatt8570]

Thanks so much Jane!

[@anneofhearts]

LOVE this learning style

[@alisonlyons4691]

This video is amazing Alison. I cant believe after decades of painting that you have come along and taught me so much about understanding how colour works. This video should be presented to all students at the beginning of their art journey. I totally agree with JC who's comment is below, so no need for me to say more, except thank you so much for your generosity and time to help understand different aspects of art........Alioban

[@alisonwatt8570]

Thanks so much Alison! I'm so happy that this may help you understand and use colour in your paintings!

[@miguelgarrido8115]

Además de presentar con tanta claridad la teoría de los colores, es que lo has hecho de forma muy bonita. Me ha gustado.

[@alisonwatt8570]

muchas gracias. Espero que este video ayuda usted en su practica artística!

[@wendytaylor1486]

Alison is there an other way of letting you view my work other than Facebook.I am loving your videos,thank you.

[@alisonwatt8570]

Hi Wendy--do you mean a way for me to view your work? do you post on Instagram? Do you have some questions about your work?

[@wendytaylor1486]

Hi Alison,Thank you for your reply.I tend not to use social media,I found I was spending too much time on there and not painting.I only asked because,for my working life I was an illustrator,now retired I love to work on Abstract in mixed media,sometimes I wonder if my work is not loose enough and I am being a bit too careful.I love your videos and feel they are helping me to free up,Thank you.

[@jankaiser1470]

Alison, I love your videos and how you explain color in this video. Very informative. Question: Since you are using computer paper to create the color swatches, what are you using to adhere the collage pieces to the substrate? Are you using a gel medium of some kind or a glue stick? How do you keep the pieces from buckling as the computer paper is quite thin. Thanks so much.

[@alisonwatt8570]

Hi Jan--I just use an acrylic medium. If you spread it evenly the colour swatches won't buckle.

[@JT-su4fh]

So interesting and informative - please could you give me a definition of what you mean by a “neutral” colour? I’m not entirely sure what you mean by that term. Thank you so much for your help 😊

[@alisonwatt8570]

A neutral is a mixture of three primaries; you can also get an instant neutral by mixing complementary colours (which is in fact the same as putting three primaries together.)

[@JT-su4fh]

@@alisonwatt8570 thank you 😊

[@ErinneKennedy]

do you use the wax paper that you mix on in collages?

[@alisonwatt8570]

i don't use wax paper in collage- but doesn't mean it couldn't be tried --you would need to really be careful to glue it well.

[@alisonwatt8570]

This was a demo I did for one of my recent Free Play Date classes

[@jaynedough130]

you teach in the south of france?! thats where i am. how do i sign up?

[@alisonwatt8570]

Jayne-- I haven't been able to travel there to teach for the last two years. I will be returning to Espedaillac next year. If you'd like to be on my mailing list, you can subscribe on my website. Where are you?

[@dharlamaiden9255]

How do we get your emails? I love your video's and would love not to have to search for them, sounds like an email would solve that. Thanks!

[@alisonwatt8570]

If you subscribe to my KZbin channel you will be notified of any new content. If you want to keep in touch with my art classes and work, you can subscibe to my mailing list on my website (link at top of the page.)