Lesson 1: Working with Blues and Browns

Effective paintings can be made with just two tubes of paint. Here we'll use ultramarine blue and burnt sienna - two complementary colors. First make a gradient swatch and notice all the variations of tones you can create.


Try a small study using mainly cool, blue tones with warm, brown contrasts and then try the reverse. Use pure hues for accents.


These grayed tones make me think of a rainy day and it has been raining non-stop here lately. During the worst of the storm we kept an eye on a flicker hunkered down in our walnut tree. He looked so miserable and I'd like to capture the feeling of 'braving a storm' in a painting. Here's a first attempt using the using the blue/brown complementary color scheme.