PLAYING WITH COLOUR – Christian Hook
Christian Hook always creates dreamy and playful tones in all his work. Paint along with him and learn the fundamentals of mixing colours, laying out a palette and using colours expressively.
Canvas or primed board
Warm Blue & Cold Blue Acrylics
Warm Red & Cold Red Acrylics
Warm Yellow & Cold yellow Acrylics
Burnt Umber Acrylic
Set of oil paints or water-based oils
Selection of brushes
Charcoal
Palette
Palette Knife
Water
Solvent
Rag
Find these items at cassart.co.uk
On your palette, lay out acrylic paints of warm and cold reds, blues and yellows. These colours will allow you to create a whole spectrum of colours. Using a palette knife, experiment and mix the corresponding cold and warm colours together (e.g. cold blue & yellow and warm blue & yellow).
TOP TIP – Adding a brown, such as Burnt Umber, on your palette can make your mixing experience easier to find the colours you desire.
After mixing the corresponding warm and cold colours it will show you the range of the dull and bright colours you can achieve with them on your palette. This is a good starting point when deciding the colour, to use when studying your reference.
On your canvas put your first wash down in acrylic. Be experimental and try out a mix of colours until you are happy with the one for your base. In this example, we are using a bright green. If working on a deep canvas or board, you can put your base colour on the edge of the canvas too.
TOP TIP – Any expressive painting can be playful with its background. It doesn’t have to be of a neutral tone. Using acrylic means your base will dry faster than an oil.
Look at your reference and play with your colour palette to find suitable tones. Embrace your experimentation and don’t be afraid to put your brush on the canvas. You can be messy and enjoy your mistakes at this stage.
Block your chosen light and dark colours on the canvas with a bigger brush, whilst referring to your reference. You can have fun with the tones and surprise yourself. The only rule to follow is to make sure you use darker colours in the darker areas of the face and lighter colours in the lighter areas.
TOP TIP – When working fast it can be useful to draw afterwards. Drawing at the start means you lose your markings slowly as you paint. Embrace the mess and then draw.
As you place more tones on the canvas, you will start to see areas which would benefit from some colour. Remain expressive and experiment with your colours. Apply these colours in the same way you would with your light and dark tones.
TOP TIP – Abandon the ideas of right and wrong when creating. Have fun and play with your preferred colours. The actual drawing is still irrelevant at this stage.
TOP TIP – Keep your brush and palette clean when mixing and painting. If you don’t, you will mix unwanted colours with others. This can lead to them looking muddy.
Add a background colour that is complimentary to your existing colours on the face.
Use your brush strokes to help form the shape of the bust, as if you are chiselling a statue out of marble. This is still rough and doesn’t need to be perfect.
TOP TIP – When picking the colour of your background, it’s good to pick an opposite colour to those used on the face, so they complement each other. In this case, the background is green, so the opposite colour is red. We recommend mixing red and blue to create a complimentary purple layer.
Now that you’ve got a rough representation of your subject, you can start to refine what you can see. Use a thin stick charcoal and draw in the features, going over the acrylic paint. As you refine you might surprise yourself with mistakes that work. This can regard anything from tones, proportions or features looking too long (e.g. the nose) and more.
TOP TIP – Part of the fun with expressive painting is never knowing the outcome. It can be fun and serve as a way to discover new methods.
Experiment with textures and patterns. You could scratch the painting with the back of the brush, mix the paint with water to create a dripping effect and smudge with your fingers. If you change your mind, you can always go over them.
You could switch between a dry or wet brush, blur the layers of paint into your canvas or leave sharp lines.
Keep going back and forth with your experimentation to find out what works for you. If you want to define an area more, you can go back to it with your thin charcoal and outline any adjustment areas.
You could apply some of your background colour to the face to balance out the painting.
The number of working layers doesn’t matter; keep going until you’re happy with your final piece.
This is the same for your complimentary colours. Discover, mix colours and play around with their placement on the canvas until you find a good balance.
TOP TIP – Don’t forget to work with your warms and colds. Using a dry brush means you can still see some of the layers underneath your paint, which adds to an interesting, playful piece.