Comparing colors in oils and acrylics

Vianna Szabo · 09-02-2007, 10:22 AM

Hello everyone,

I will be teaching several classes concerning color. I offered the classes with oil and pastel because they are mediums I am most comfortable with and I know the color mixing properties of different brands. Several students will be working in acrylic but I am not familiar with how they compare to oils. I teach a very limited palette in oils of:

Pam Powell · 09-02-2007, 02:42 PM

I'm sure there are plenty of people here that will give you more complete information, but I remember one thing about acrylics that drove me mad. I painted with them for several years before I discovered oils 17 years ago. I don't remember being shocked about differences in the actual colors and how they mixed together when wet, but I was amazed at how much acrylics darkened when they dried. I didn't realize how much I'd struggled with that until I switched to oils and the problem went away. I thought the hardest thing was getting accurate values.

Vianna Szabo · 09-02-2007, 04:52 PM

Thank you Pam,
That is important information to know. I usually make value and color shift decisions on the palette and will have to adjust for that. How much does the value change and does the amount of medium affect them as well?

I worked for another artist in his studio using acrylics, His philosophy was that any mistakes could be covered by another layer of paint but I found it got muddy if you were not sensitve to the preceding layer.

Pam Powell · 09-03-2007, 03:02 AM

The good thing about acrylics is that they dry fast, as long as the paint is opaque you really can paint on top and correct anything. The only circumstance where an under-layer would effect an over-layer is if the top layer is transparent.

I painted opaquely when I was using acrylics, I just remember that there were times when I was painting on dry hot days and I thought I'd loose my mind. I'd put a brushstroke down, reach for another brush full of paint from the same pile, and discover that the first brushstroke was dry and half a value step darker than the wet paint.

Sometimes I'd stop painting because I had to tend to something else, I'd come back to find that matching the dry paint was really hard because I had to mix a lighter value than what was on the canvas because if would dry darker. Of course, sometimes, I just had to repaint the whole darn thing.

Just before I gave up on acrylics I discovered a medium that extended the drying time and actually made it possible to do some blending. I imagine it's used commonly now, I don't remember it having any effect on that value nightmare.

Vianna Szabo · 09-03-2007, 08:02 AM

[/QUOTE]I'd come back to find that matching the dry paint was really hard because I had to mix a lighter value than what was on the canvas because if would dry darker.

There lies the excitement. In oils I can always match color that was previously mixed. I think it is time for me to pull some old acrylics out of the basement and do some quick still lives. A student of mine uses the extender medium but it still dried to fast for my liking. Softening edges will also be more of a challenge I would think.

Thank you for your information, Pam, it really helped.

Sharon Knettell · 09-03-2007, 08:13 AM

Vianna,

I taught a course on color in Scottsdale last spring.

One of the most frustrating things was to have a student who is not on the same page as you. It is a very difficult subject to teach- for me at least. Color is so subtle, as you know. A slight shift in color can mean all the difference beween radiant and oops!

I would insist that your students all work with the same colors and medium.

Vianna Szabo · 09-03-2007, 09:11 AM

The biggest obstacle for me is in getting students past symbolic color or what they think the color of something should be. I have found that once I can get them to isolate and identify a color independent of the object it is on then we have the discussion of what is causing that color to appear. The rest is just a matter of mixing according to value, temperature, and intensity. I have not had a problem with oils and pastels. Some of my private students work in acrylic but my main concern with them has been getting them to knock down the intensity.

I will be teaching two classes on color I always start the classes with a demo of painting a simple still life in both oil and pastel. That way I can explain the process and how it applies to both mediums. For acrylics I will have to adjust for value, I'm just not sure how much.

One of my private students is color blind. I used my box of pastels to identify what he could see. It was amazing that once we knew what he had trouble with he could paint. (I did take away his tube of viridian) His first painting is posted on my website under students work as Art's first painting. He is a fearless student.

I have seen your class offerings in Scottsdale and wished I could get down that way.

Thanks for your input Sharon.

Pam Powell · 09-03-2007, 12:47 PM

Hi Vianna,

I taught beginning figure painting at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco for 12 years. Although it wasn't a "color class" , we spent a whole lot of time talking about color. I agree totally with your approach. I also agree with Sharon that everybody should use the same color palette, no matter the medium.

One thing that I made my students do, that really seemed to help them, was to paint colors charts. Of course it was college, so homework was expected, but I kept it really simple. One of the hardest thing for beginners is mixing fleshtones and seeing the nuances. I sort of did a hybrid of John Howard Sanden's and Richard Schmid's charts. They had to individually mix each yellow with each red on thier palette and progressively add white until they got very light tints. Then they had to mute all the mixtures with cerulean blue, just enough to mute, not to change the hue! The whole exercise was worth it just to teach them how to mute a color.

It was the one thing that opened everybody's eyes to the variety of mixtures possible.

Teaching is so much fun and I hope you have a great time with this one!

Vianna Szabo · 09-04-2007, 05:34 PM

Hi Pam,

I think that's a good idea to have the acrylic painters come with the same colors as the oils and I think there is a lot to be learned from color charts as well. I am familiar with Schmits color charts but not Sandens. Are they in one of his books? I am at an art center and not a college so I will make the home work optional.

I was lucky enough to attend a workshop with Kim English a few years back. He had a great system of painting white on white. I will be applying this to a white on white still life as a way of teaching the color wheel. The three primaries are laid out in a triangle on the palette with a gob of white in the middle. Bascially as you identify all the shifts in value and color you end up mixing a color wheel and using the complements to create the greys. It teaches that the color wheel is a value wheel as well. With teens I have them mix the color wheel and the greys than use Betty Edwards idea of gridding off a canvas and having them paint their emotions. No right or wrong, just gets them used to what the color and brushstokes can do. When we start painting from life I can ask "remember that greyed blue you liked so well? Do you see it anywhere in the still life? Then they have something to reference to.

Your right teaching is a blast. I start at a wonderful art center in Birmingham, MI next week. I can't wait!

Thank you for all of your advice