Today seemed a good day to share another one of my wizard paintings because, well next month (April) on my Patreon blog I’m going to be sharing the full, realtime version of this sketch as a secondary demo.
(You can already see the sketch silent and sped up to only 3 minutes long on my Instagram.)
What’s a secondary demo? Well, I always plan a month with a certain video in mind. And in April I’ll be showing a real-time video of me sketching a black and white dog I painted several months ago—that’s why it has been in the planning loop.
But as soon as I set the topic for a month on my Patreon site I start thinking and thinking about that subject/topic and it influences my current sketching.
In February and March on my Patreon site I kept writing and talking about a triad I had been using. And because of that I kept painting with that triad, using it with different pigments being prominent or dominant. I find it so fascinating that of course I have to share that so now I’ve got a secondary demo for April, and so it goes.
Speaking of that triad (which is a secondary triad of green, orange, and a mixed purple) I couldn’t let go of it and I sketched another human portrait and another dog using that triad in different ways in just the last couple of days.
One of those sketches is another black dog. I don’t do a lot of talking on that particular video as I was coughing from allergies, so I decided I’ll put it up publicly here in April. However, it will be really fun for anyone on Patreon to see it in comparison to the other pieces.
And in general the dog sketch coming up here on RozWoundUp will be interesting, for people who know my work and my pigment preferences, to see how I paint a black dog without my beloved PB60 and Burnt Sienna. (It can be done.)
Painting with alternate pigments is a great thing for any artist to do—push past your usual pigment choices and find new mixes to paint favorite subjects. (And you all know there is no more favorite subject for me than a black and white dog.)
I have painted so much with this secondary triad that I realized I have enough loose sheet pages that I could have a whole wall gallery of triadic siblings!
I know you probably think, “Well now Roz really has gone off the rails.”
I see it as an unintentional project! It’s so fun to discover you are in the midst of one.
This project has had fantastic results in my art, in my other projects (like the wizards; yep, I used that triad for Ted) and on my overall attitude about paints in general (because I’m already planning to switch out some pigments for more experimentation—when the downsizing is over and my stuff comes out of storage!).
Use April to take a close look at your palette. Find a triad there that is outside your normal use, and doesn’t contain your favorite pigments. Focus on using only that triad for the month.
Or pick a complementary pair, or a tetrad, or use “gamut masking” as artist James Gurney does in this fabulous video.
Gurney’s gamut masking video is under 5 minutes and will turn light bulbs on in your head.
Then you can go and read James Gurney on gamut masking in his book Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter.
I’m not connected to Gurney in anyway, except as a fan of his work. He is explaining the world to artists, I suggest you check him out. Gurney is a national treasure!
