Post-show doldrums are a great time to share insights from prior workshops. Several of us ‘7 Palettes’ have been sharing new color mixing techniques this week. Here’s what I passed along from the fabulous Terry Miura workshop my sister Ceci and I attended awhile back.
Here’s a glimpse of Terry’s palette:
Terry Miura’s Limited Palette
And here are insights about painting the figure using a limited earth-tone palette:
- Select one of each ‘primary’ color, plus white: yellow ochre; transparent iron oxide red (‘earth red’ in some brands) , ivory black (standing in for blue) and Titanium white.
- Using a palette knife, make two ‘puddles’ of paint consisting of a bit of each of the primary colors (in varying proportions, obviously): a light-toned puddle for use in painting light areas of the figure and a dark toned puddle for shadowed areas.
- To add variety to the light and shadow areas of the painting, ‘push’ each puddle toward other colors and values by adding relatively more of desired dominant colors and less of the subordinated colors. For example, mix into part of the light puddle a bit more yellow ochre & some black to make a greenish variant.
- Make sure that none of the darker values in the light puddle is as dark as the lightest light value in the dark puddle and vice versa. Imagine a line down your palette between the two puddles to keep them strictly separate.
- Paint the light areas of the figure using only the light puddle and its variants; and paint the shadowed areas of the figure using only with the dark puddle and its variants.
- Assuming you’ve drawn the figure fairly well, you’ve got a fine looking painting!
Here’s Terry’s beautiful twenty minute demo!
Terry’s nude.
