Beginner Colour / Color Theory – Painting With Saturation and Neutrals

About This Class In the next Lesson in our Beginner Colour theory series we’ll be covering the last of our 3 Scales of Colour – Saturation. The Saturation scale is the link between Hue and Value, it allows us to find relationships between colours that otherwise have nothing in common, as well as helping us elevate the colour intensity of our compositions. In this lesson we’ll start with a lecture and breakdown of Saturation, take a look at painting with and creating Greys and Neutrals, talk about colour schemes and at the end there will be a 30min painting demonstration, as well as an assignment for you to complete afterwards.

If you are using digital drawing applications I recommend Affinity Photo as it has the best mixing tools for digital paint. If you’re using traditional paints I recommend starting with a cheap set of water based or acrylic paints, oils tends to be a little tricky to begin with and more expensive. Red, Blue, Yellow, White and Black is the minimum that you will need, however it’s recommend to use Burnt Umber or an equivalent dark saturated colour in place of Black for this lesson. Other colour options are explained in the video. The pencil sketch for the exercise is available in the course notes.

Expanded Colour Options:

Lemon Yellow

Cadmium Yellow Cadmium Red Quinacridone Red Pthalo Blue Cobalt Green Burnt Umber Titanium White