How to Not Get Distracted by Colors When Painting Art

Nosotros've all been there. In fact, you may be at that place RIGHT Now.

The thought of painting brings you dread. Starting, let lone finishing, something complicated is completely overwhelming. And it means you don't even enter your studio.  It can happen, especially when life seems harder than usual.

This by week, Mark Eanes (Ep 11: the Color Episode) gave a 6 great ideas for how to practice mixing color. Near of the exercises were standalone projects that would pair wonderfully with music, a book on tape...or a podcast episode. :)

His ideas couldn't come up at a better time. If painting seems overwhelming right now, that's OK. Allow yourself some slack. Maybe it's the perfect fourth dimension to try something smaller and more specific. Those types of exercises are great at building your skills.

one. Timed Painting

One way Jane Davies (Ep. iii)  paints is past setting up challenges for herself like the timed painting. Commit to making marks and putting down paint for a set amount of time like 30 minutes. The goal isn't to have a finished piece of art you like. The goal is to just keep going. Work through the pushback and merely keep painting.

Why information technology's great: We get really focused sometimes on the concluding painting. Do we LIKE information technology? Volition other people LIKE it? This exercise helps us focus on the process itself. How are you reacting to what yous put downwards? Where does that lead you next?

ii. Do Color Mixing

A great thing to do when you're feeling bromidic is to challenge yourself to mix specific paint colors. Annie O'Brien Gonzales (Ep. 1) suggests taking a paint chip and so trying to match that color with a paint you lot mix yourself.

Why it's cracking: This exercise actually focuses yous to an individual claiming. Information technology'due south very satisfying when you do nail the color. And fifty-fifty when y'all don't, you larn a TON almost color mixing in a low stakes manner.

iii. Color Schemes

Annie O'Brien Gonzales (Ep. 1) talks nearly three different colors schemes in her interview (monochromatic, coordinating and complementary.) Accept i reference and challenge yourself to paint (or utilise pen or colored pencil) it three split up times each with a different color scheme.

Why it's slap-up: It's astonishing merely how different a painting tin can be depending on the color scheme. Plus, information technology's fun to feel yourself wanting to utilize colors outside of the scheme. Hold dorsum! Really endeavor hard to stay within the scheme you chose. Y'all'll learn what's possible when you do.

4. Create Color Swatches

Take the paints you lot have on hand right now and see what they can do. Really do. Annie O'Brien Gonzales (Ep. 1) recommends taking all those dejection and reds and seeing just how many violets you lot can become. It'southward probably a ton. Keep color swatches then yous know how y'all got there and which colors you used and so you can go there again.

Why information technology'south cracking: Now is a not bad time to utilize the materials you have. They tin can do a lot.

v. Go smaller

Maybe it'south too hard to finish a total painting right now. But don't let that end you lot from painting wholesale. Allow'south take a page from one of Stan Kurth'southward (Episode 10) sketchbooks. Every twenty-four hour period, Kurth creates a small square painting in them. Kurth uses his regular materials and works through the aforementioned themes. That said, they are much smaller and he tin can exercise them in front of the TV.

Why it'southward great: I'chiliad not going to prevarication. Sometimes you lot need something you can practice in front end of the tv.

six. Start a Pinterest Board

Stan Kurth'southward (Episode 10) uses Pinterest every bit part of his artistic development. He looks through and collects the art he really loves. And then he spends a lot of time looking at that art.  Ask yourself, what specifics you like well-nigh a given painting?

Why it's swell: It's fun to get-go to see the kind of work you are attracted to. Yous may discover something about the kind of paintings you love that you never knew before. You can likewise clarify why you similar the paintings you similar. Maybe you lot'll detect themes (like types of colors or value uses) that you can then pull into your own piece of work.

7. Find Fun Color Combos

You know that stack of magazines you tin't quite recycle yet? Anne Abgott (Ep. half-dozen) suggests that you lot become through and look for color combinations yous dearest in either paintings or advertising. Clip them out and create a notebook.

If yous desire to footstep information technology upwardly a notch, effort mixing those colors. Then you can add together that to your notebook so that on one side, put the color combination. On the other side, figure out how the paints y'all accept on hand can mix those colors.

Why it's bang-up: A project that involves cutting upward magazines? Yep Please.

8. Limit Your Shapes

Take a reference and challenge yourself to pair it down to simply 10 -12 shapes. This is an practice Marker Mehaeffey (Ep 5) does with his workshop students and it helps yous practice making choices well-nigh what's important (and what's not of import) in a scene you're painting.

Why information technology'south great: Think of it more similar a puzzle to be solved than anything else.

9. Practice Value Studies

Getting value confident volition make your paintings that much stronger. Peggi Habets (Ep.four) suggests taking a thumbnail drawing and doing a value study of it. Play around with how different a subject feels when you shift the value patterns.

Why information technology's great: Like the Limit Your Shapes thought in a higher place, this too is like a puzzle to be solved. Information technology tin can exist and then fun to create a bunch of these and only try on different combinations of light and night.

10. Sketch!

Each week Artistic Goad Productions (full disclosure, my day job) I share a 15-minute video slideshow for cartoon practice. Each is on a theme. All yous have to do is grab some paper and a pen and hit play. It's an piece of cake fashion to practice your sketching with very low stakes.

Why it'south bully: If you committed to doing one of these a mean solar day, can y'all imagine how much stronger your drawing skills would exist in a but a few months?!

11. Exercise Painting Specific Subjects

In my interview with watercolorist Andy Evansen, Evansen (Ep. 12), Evansen suggests taking fourth dimension to practice i attribute of your painting.

For case, if you lot accept figures in your landscape work, spend an afternoon painting just small figures. (This would be separate from practicing figure painting.)

Why it'south smashing: It takes the adventure out of something that can feel risky. If, for example, you don't feel super confident adding people to your paintings, that can feel really stressful WHEN y'all're in a painting. Only not so much if information technology's but a agglomeration of google images and a blank piece of watercolor newspaper.

What other ideas do you have for projects to do on days when you're feeling too distracted to paint? Delight leave what's working for yous in the comments section beneath.