[Socar MYLES]

The colour exercise posted a few days ago reminded me of an exercise I got from one of my professors at Emily Carr. To sum up: A mistake a lot of people make in painting is using pure white and black for highlights and shadows. It makes for a more interesting painting to use deep, rich hues made of mixed colours instead of black, and slightly off-whites instead of pure white.

To show how it worked, he suggested we try painting studies in "black" and "white", but without using any actual black OR white. I did not do the study in black, because I am a lazy toff, but I did do thewhite one. I posted it here a while ago.

I spent most of the time messing about with textures to try and get some interest into it, since it was very limited both in values and colours. I should probably have varied the colours more, in fact, but...ah, well...I did not.

Anyway, it's a fun thing to try. Feel free to post your own attempts.

[strata]

all I got was an internal server error... our connection here is not working well to say the least...

but thanks for the lesson anyhoo socar! =)

[Socar MYLES]

Duh...actually, that's my fault. I'm moving Gorblimey to a new host, and...well...it isn't working for everyone yet. Try this: http://www.epilogue.net/cgi/database/art/view.pl?id=5132

[strata]

ooh very nice... it's very serene looking somehow... it feels angelic in a way....

coolbeans super socar!

[edraket]

I am not getting something.
You painted this using just white?
On a darker surface or something? I am not sure what you mean.

I thought you were talking about mixing black from the different colors without actually using a paint labeled "black"
But with the white I am not sure...

I am very interested though. I just started painting with acrylics and I keep on struggling to get things to get darker without them getting too grey.

Its probably approprate to tell you that ten years back..in highschool my art teacher refused to let us use black paint. I didn't really see the point then. But I sure do now.

[Socar MYLES]

No...the trick is not to use white at all. When you use "black", yes, you should mix it from other colours rather than using black paint.

For the white study, you WOULD use white paint, but mixed with other colours so it isn't pure white. Or you could try just using very faint washes of colour, and no white. I did this with Photoshop, so I just picked very light colours.

[Christian +]

I'm not very sure if I get the whole thing right but I've tried this. It's not too hard and it sure is a lot of fun, and a hell of a good exercise.
Thanks Socar for bringing this up.

[Christian +]

Hehe.....sorry got it wrong the first time.
Here it is.

[edraket]

Ah ok I get it now. Didn't read your sentence right.
I like your painting. Although it does seem a little grey ish. I think using some colours would have made it better.

Christian+ It's cool. But hardly white anymore.