Learning to paint in colour?

[snowGA]

(To avoid my blabbering below - does anyone know a good resource for learning how to paint in color?)

Hi there. I've been painting in just greyscale for quite some time now to practice rendering tone. Now that I feel confident in my abilities, I was thinking of moving on to color, until I realized, I know nothing about painting with color. I know color theory, but not how to pick appropriate colors for a painting from reference.

Does anyone know any resources that teach how to see and apply color in painting?

Thanks in advance.

[Zazerzs]

Check out the link in my sig. Fletcher has some good info.

[J Wilson]

While there are some very interesting and valid discussions about color, at this stage why not just use your own set of eyes and dive in? Nothing will help you as much at the beginning as just observation and your own critical thinking.

If you've got reference, you've got a pretty good roadmap to get started. Start off trying to match those. Down the road with more experience you can knowingly variate from the reference to push and pull things in the directions you'd like to take them. Emphasize cooler more desaturated colors to evoke a somber mood, as one example. Use your instincts. After some time those color discussions will feel more valuable as you'll have the experience and understanding to put it to better use.

[Lamp]

The Fletcher reading mentioned by Zazersz is good and valuable, but I probably wouldn't dig in to that just yet as a total beginner. You say you know color theory, but since we have no way of gauging your knowledge, you might still consider picking up some books on painting and color from the library. Hopefully some others can offer some decent suggestions for beginners. But as J Wilson said, the most important thing to do at this stage is to just dig in and experiment for a little bit. Eventually you'll be able to compare your work to the work of experts, and you'll start to get a little better grasp of exactly where you need to concentrate in your studies.

[dcorc]

What medium are you using? Are you talking about digital, or traditional (and if so, what - oils? acrylic? etc...? )


Dave