From the course: Painting Foundations: Light and the Landscape

Painting with color and light

- So to first get our eyes tuned in to the style of painting and color palette we'll be using, what we're going to do to start with is have a look at different color temperatures and lighting conditions. And how these can change the visual effect in your paintings. (light instrumental music) As the sun sets into the evening, this coastal view of Cornwall reveals these strong dark shapes of the rocks on the right-hand side. There's muted landscape in the distance. And then the color palette consists of cool greens, cool blues, and a soft, warm blue in the sky. In this Monet painting, we see a similar feel with his choice of colors. There's a cool turquoise sea next to the warm purple-blue sky. The shadow in the water acts as the dark contrast. And when we look up close, you can see the broken color of the brushmarks against the texture of the canvas underneath. (light instrumental music) Again in this Monet painting, the color harmony between turquoise water, light-cool greens in the grass, a strong shadow shape, and a muted-warm blue is again present. So, there's this recurring lovely relationship between warm blue skies, and cool tones in the foreground. Now we're looking at the scene of the Ponte Vecchio in Florence. And this is in the midday sun. And you can tell this because of the dark shadow shapes directly under the bridge, and the brighter color in the sky. Notice how the cream building colors become an integral part of the scene as the warm yellows are reflected down into the water. And the reflections as a whole are a slightly darker tone than the colors in the buildings. (light instrumental music) Again in this lovely Monet painting, this is also in the midday sun. You can see a similar color harmony of having warm yellows, warm greens, and a warm blue sky. And when we look closely at the reflections under the bridge, we can see the same color palette being used in the water. So, in the previous Monet painting based in the afternoon light, there was a warm sky with cool water and cool greens. Whereas here in the midday sun, we've got a warm sky, warm yellows, and warm greens. (light instrumental music) As the sun begins to set, and if you have a clear sky, there's often really subtle graduations in the color in the sky. And also, the tonal range in the sky is very close together. And then you can introduce darker contrast in your composition by the silhouette of the city. In this Turner painting of a seascape, you can see how close in tone the soft grays and pinks hues are in the sky. And you've got this really close color palette. So, when you've got this, you can add texture into your painting to add interest to the surface. And here you can see how Turner has built up the surface using thicker paint. (light instrumental music) As the sun fully sets, you get a golden-hour glow, which has this lovely yellow warmth to it. And here it's enabled Turner to utilize a technique of glazing onto the painting surface. Glazing is when you paint a thin layer of paint over the top of an already dried layer of paint. And this adds luminosity in tone. So notice here in the crevices of the lighter color that have been applied thickly, there are these dark areas of yellow. And this has been created by painting a thin layer of paint that has been allowed to settle within the texture. So you don't always have to add thick texture into your paintings. Especially if you've got some vivid colors in the scene. Such as this rich, warm sunset. So here Monet has used a contrast of colors because the bright oranges and the bright blues really give that energy to the painting surface. There's these lovely purple shadows on the buildings. And when you focus in on the reflections in the water you can see how he's used complimentary colors, orange and blue, placed closely together to create that dappling movement on the surface. We can incorporate these color notes we've observed from nature into our Venice scene. But before we get started, I'm going to introduce the materials we're going to be using on the rest of the course.

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