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This is a public post from my Patreon site, The Painter's Classroom.  

Have you ever noticed how white is not included on the color wheel? White is the lightest value and is considered acrhromaitic, which means it dose not have a hue. It is the tofu of the color world. Just like the bland bean curd that takes on the flavor of any seasonings added to it, white takes on the color of light, shadow, and surrounding colors that reflect into it. For that reason painting white objects is the best way you can learn to paint color harmony.

Let's go back to lessons in April and May where I talked about the problem of symbolism and color. Artists run into trouble when they paint what they think a color should be rather than what they really see. Over the past couple of months the lessons and exercises have all been about learning to identify what color you see by using the primary, secondary and “ish” names. We learned that if you can identify a color in this simple manner then you can mix it. Now we are going to take all of that information and focus on what makes color harmony.

The reason you can see objects to paint them is because of light. If a still life is set up in a windowless room with no light source, you cannot paint because you cannot see the objects. If you place a candle next to the still life, you have soft lighting with a yellow-red cast with blue-green shadows.  If you place a daylight LED spotlight to the right of the still life, you get a bright blueish light with distinct orangish shadows.  Fill the ceiling with fluorescent shop lights and you will get a flat greenish light. In all of these instances you would have a different painting.  The objects stayed the same but when the light changes the scene changes. Painting is about capturing moments of light.  

This month we are going to focus on painting white objects to learn about how light affects color. If you have ever wondered why your paintings look muddy or chalky that question will be answered by what we study this month. For subscribers I will be giving you exercises, demos and reference material to work from. For those of you who are new to the site ( Welcome! ) please go back over the lessons in April and May to give you some background in color identification and mixing.  

Most of my paintings have white objects in them.  It is my favorite non-color to paint!

Join me at my Patreon Site, The Painter's Classroom, where for $5 a month you get lessons in the form of videos, blogs and handouts, plus you get your art questions answered.  www.patreon.com/viannaszabo