Regardless of the myth, there are no secrets about how to paint and how to create sound compositions. There are, however, processes that get ignored in favor of traditional methods of teaching, and within those we find clues for masterful paintings. One of those is making initial color selections according to the color wheel rather than tube colors.
The popular way artists and painting teachers talk about color is what I call the tube color lingo. That’s how I was taught, and for decades of my teaching career, that’s how I taught color. But the older I got and the more I studied and used color, the more uncomfortable I became about that approach.
You know how it goes: we think in terms of tube color name, i.e. sap green, Prussian blue, carmine, yellow ochre, and on and on. Because of that way of thinking, I have two large drawers full of oil paint and another of watercolor. Among there lot, there must be at least five or six dozen colors, if not more.
I have been a devotee to the traditional color wheel since my graduate school days during the early 1970’s. Even so, I had failed to recognize what had been staring me in the face for more than fifty years—I had failed to see that every tube color I own can be made from what that wheel shows me.
And that is where I am going next with these weekly discussions. Stay tuned!
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