Two color layin

Here are two colors, I wonder if they look OK on your monitor? They are viridian and iron oxide red. I am starting a seascape and am using one of my strategies for getting a painting on the canvas. If I mix the two together they make a gray. I add the red to the viridian to darken it and that heats my shadows. I am using viridian because the water will have a lot of that color in it, but I often use burnt sienna and ultramarine.

Using warm and a cool complementary colors allows me to control my color temperature and reducing the game to two colors makes it almost like drawing in charcoal. I can concentrate on the drawing. Later on I can insert more colors, when I have the whole thing drawn out.

Please don't try to adjust your set, this one is blurry. Notice the blob on the upper left, it has mixtures that are warm and cool. If I add white to that I get a nice gray. I toned the canvas with the red oxide and Liquin. I let that dry over night. This is a studio painting. In the morning it was dry and I put a thin coat of liquin over that to "lock it down". I then drew the outlines of my subject with a rigger and the viridian and red mix.

Then I began working out the water and sky. They are both done with the two colors, except I insinuated a little bit of cadmium yellow into my most sunlit passages. Even the blue of the sky is viridian with a little red in it to gray it.

Here is a close up of the center wave very early in the process. If I use a lot of red into the shadows they get nice and warm and contrast with the cool lights form from the viridain alone. This was all painted with a #23 bristle about an inch and a half wide. Using the two color palette and the big brush, things can happen real fast. This is one days work. However if I run into problems I could get hung up and take forever to get it out the door.

A two color layin can be done with any two colors , complements work nicely, even yellow and violet. But the colors don't have to be compliments either. Using colors makes a much livelier layin and in this case a more finished one than just a single color like umber or black and white.
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I will be holding a three day workshop at the Bass Harbor Campground in Bass Harbor, Maine. the 25-26-27th of September. That's Saturday-Monday. We will paint outside and I will teach beginners to experts the art of outdoor landscape painting.
Here is a link to where you can sign up
Reservations at the Bass Harbor campground can be made here.