True Colors

I was listening to the Artists Helping Artists podcast the other day. The painter - Hedi Moran - said that she gets her vibrant colors by painting an undercoat in transparent paints.

This really was not something I had paid much attention to. I tend to mix a lot of titanium white into my colors, which means that they are all opaque, for the most part, with the exception of some of my greens and blues.

So today I pulled out some canvas paper and wrote the names of each of the paints I own, with a black line to paint over so that I can gauge the transparency of the color. I made these little charts, which I think will be very handy to refer to while I'm painting.

I definitely want to experiment with this concept of a transparent underpainting. Karen showed me how to do a burnt sienna underpainting (burnt sienna seems to be at least semi transparent) and I love starting a painting that way.

I got a Hobby Lobby gift certificate for Christmas... I may use it to buy more transparent colors.