Plein Air Tips

>>2518104
>Pic is not mine. Random google image.
Post your own work for better feedback.

Honestly for plein air just observe the colours and try to mix them accurately.

If you want a good overview of light and colour, this site is great but somewhat technical and long:
http://www.huevaluechroma.com/

The big thing to know though is colour has three components. Value (how light or dark it is), Hue (red, orange, yellow etc), and Saturation (the intensity of it, is it greyish or colourful). There's also Temperature, which comes about from a combination of those, but it is a relative thing that changes based on colours around it.

Objects have a local colour (a green tree for example) that is then shifted based on the lighting. So a tree outside will have a warm green colour in sunlight and a cool green shadow (the shadow is influenced by the blue of the sky).

>>2518128

thanks for the feedback. i'll go through that site.

i understand those three components, but its a whole different animal outdoors, when i'm mixing on the go haha. as in i dont know how to get the values/saturation i want from the paints i have. my instructor just mixes in a tiny bit of this and that and gets the exact color he wants. i dont have that, but i guess your site will be the starting point.

i was super sad about my paintings and almost through them away. theyre just sitting in a plastic bag right now. i'll post once i get home.

>>2518131
I'm not sure if you paint digitally or not, but colour mixing in oils is a bit different.

A few things to keep in mind:
-not all colours are the same strength...a tiny tiny bit of blue will affect a large pool of yellow or white for example. So you need to just get experience of what proportions to mix things.
-most palettes use a warm and cool version of each of the primaries. Try to figure out what temperature each of your colours is.
-mixing complementary colours sort of cancels out...like mixing red and green, or a purple and yellow, gets a dark brownish colour.
-Mixing a brown and a blue is a common way of getting a black.
-whenever you mix two colours the combination will be darker than the brightest one you mixed
-since you are working in oils you can scrub off with a rag dipped in solvent or scrape with a palette knife to get rid of paint and erase a section
-painting plein air is super hard and much more difficult than painting indoors with controllable settings, so don't beat yourself up too much for not getting results you want
-Alla Prima by Richard Schmid is a great book that talks about oils, painting in general, colour, and a whole bunch of other stuff. He does primarily plein air and has step by steps. It's expensive but worth buying. Or if you are poor then you can check out the book thread and I think there is a link for it.

>>2518104

Don't carry a lot of colors. Use limited pallette, most popular one/widely known is so called Zorn pallette:

http://michaellynnadams.com/zorn-palette/

See also here on tips:

http://www.stefanbaumann.com/choosing-color-palette/

>Can you guys recommend tips or resources for me to learn basic color fundamentals so this class won't end up as a giant waste of money for me?

Gurney in artbook thread, but it's extensive read. I personally recommend "Color, 2nd edition: A Workshop for Artists and Designers" by David Hornung, it's avaliable on torrents like kat.

What is nice about this book it has tasks on how to design your own color studies and actually doesn't leave you alone with just a bunch of theory. It also has plenty of examples on what it tries to teach you.

>>2518104

Go do Master Studies

>>2518155
Zorn palette is meant for portraiture and figures, not landscapes

>>2518155

Oh and in "Color" what you want to read is:

Chapter 4: Beginning Color Studies, p. 50 Assignment 1: Chromatic Gray Studies

Chapter 5: Color Interactions, specifically Assigment Five on the page 67.

And also in later chapter Assignment 7 and 8 about Color Progression and Color Space Studies.

Most importantly: p.100 Intermixing a Limited Palette and on next page Assignment 10: Two-Color complementary palette.

>>2518140
those are awesome tips. thank you. gonna print that out for my next class.

i appreciate the encouragement btw.

>>2518155
thanks for the tips. the baumann link is very close to what i'm looking for.

i'm reading the gurney book right now. i love how concise it is.

i will add the hornung book to my list.

>>2518156
suggestions?

>>2518166
sweet thanks. found the torrent lol

>>2518159

Ah, sorry, you are right. OP, disregard Zorn Palette then and go with the tip from Gurney (p. 104 of his "Color & Light") for landscape palette:

Titanium white (PW 6)

Venetian red (PR 101)

Yellow ochre (PY 43)

Ultramarine blue (PB 29)

>>2518169
>suggestions?
Depends on your taste. Here's some variety of landscape painters: Isaac Levitan, Edward Seago, Willard Metcalf, Corot, Edgar Payne, Monet. Do some research and figure out what you like or don't like. Most of these guys will be a part of a group of painters or a style of the time and region, and you can find other artists working in similar styles.

>>2518104
Hey man, plein air is a great way to learn about oil paints. I highly recommend /Landscape Painting/ by Mitchell Albala. Great examples and suggestions, and even a list of stuff to carry around.

As others have mentioned, limit your palette. e.g if you have a cad yellow around, you might be tempted to paint the sun yellow because the sun's yellow, right?

Honestly though, before you go into color, you need to become familiar with values. The simple simple simple version of this is- the landscape is made of four shades: black, dark gray, gray, and white.

The sky is the lightest because it's the light, duh! The second lightest thing is whatever reflects the light best- the horizontal, flat, surfaces- i.e. ground. Next are things that catch light, but not as much as the ground- hills, slopes, etc. The darkest thing, as you may imagine, whatever is /not/ in light- shadow, trunk of a tree etc.

Understanding values- being able to see them and replicate them- is more important than color. Once you get the value right, you can knock in any color and it makes some sense.

It's difficult to learn all of oil painting at once. I say pick value. Take a transparent green, blue, or umber and practice this- color your entire canvas with a loose layer of the paint and darken with more paint or lighten by wiping it off. No white. (White at the very very end when you are so sure and confident about putting those few strokes of highlight!)

This sounds foreign at first, but keep practicing values. Squint and summarize it to four-five monochrome shades. This is going to help you a lot in the long run!

Best of luck!

>>2518173
sweet find. i'm just about to get there for the gurney book lol

>>2518190
thanks for the suggestions!

>>2518280
this is a hell of a summary. thanks dude. simplifying it really is the way to go. the squinting thing is a really cool tool to use lol. i love the value underpainting suggestion. thank you so much.

>>2518845

No problem! I'm graduating with a concentration in oil painting; I love what I do! I'm happy I could share.

>>2518873
share some of your work man! i'd love to see

Tell your teacher about your worries, he'll be sure to comfort you

Most of learning is just practice
Go read james gurney color and light
Try to not feel like you're studying for a school test. It's a skill for life