All right, guys.
So I'm here with Aaron Westerberg, and he brought in a few of his color studies that
he's done.
I think a lot of people, when they do color studies, they end up actually just creating
muddy paintings.
So how do you avoid muddy paintings and muddy colors?
First thing I would say, one of the most important things is, you have to ask yourself or tell
yourself, you know, "Well, what's the temperature of the light?"
Okay?
Nothing exists in isolation, right?
So things look the way they do because of what's around them, right?
So for example, if you have something that has warm light and you make the shadows warm
also, it's gonna look muddy because it's warm on warm.
And light doesn't work like that, you know?
If you have cool light, then generally you can say that the shadows are gonna be warm.
Okay?
So cool light, warm shadows, warm light, cool shadows.
That's kind of the big 101, you know?
Sometimes it's really subtle, you know, the differences between them.
Yeah.
I mean, I think it's pretty obvious in this painting at least.
Yeah. You can look at even...
Cool light, warm shadows.
Yeah.
And the coolest area of light is gonna be the closest to the light source.
It's gonna be the lightest and the coolest, right?
It's the closest so you can see like the highlight right there.
But on her chest right here, see it's cool and then it gets warm.
There's some kind of yellow-greens and yellow-browns where the coat is casting a little bit of
a shadow on her chest.
And I mean even in this one too, warm light, you know, then cool as it rolls because the
light source isn't on this part of her face, and then cool and then it gets warmer as it
rolls into the shadow.
Yeah.
Well, you have actually a few light source, two light sources on that one.
You have the main light source that's kinda on her head or on her face, and then you just
have that little light source on here.
Yeah. That one's a little more complex because of the secondary light source.
Because it seems like if, without the flame, the light source would be cool.
Like looking at the hand, the lights cool and then the shadows in there are warm.
And then you have that secondary light source which is really warm.
So you have warm, cool, warm.
I think when people hear that like warm light, cool shadow or cool light, warm shadow, they
think literally blue and orange or something.
But it's not really...you can have...like this is...you're saying a cool.
But if you just take that color in isolation, that's actually a warmer color.
It's like a tannish, it's warmer.
Depending on what you put around it.
If put blue around it...
If you put gray, if put pure gray around it, wouldn't that be a warm color?
Well, there's no such thing as pure gray.
Pure gray's a...
Like if you digital...well, if you take a photo.
Okay, let's just say this.
If I put this color right here, it'll look warm, right, compared to the blue-green that
it's around, right?
Just like you see how this color is cooler than this color, right, is cooler than this
color?
It's in the environment that it's in we're talking about, not just in general, "This
is a warm color, this is a cool color."
There's no such thing, you know?
It depends on what it's around.
That's a good topic because a lot of times people ask me, "Well, how do I get this color
to look really rich?"
Well, generally you put the opposite color around it.
So say if you have something that's purple, right, how do you get a purple color to look
really vibrant?
Put like a muted yellow around it, right?
Even like a yellow-green or something like that.
Depending on what temperature the purple is, you know, it could be a blue-purple, or a
red-purple, whatever, but put the opposite color around it and then it'll look really
rich.
And a lot of people do...
I mean, I'll talk about Zorn a little bit more too.
With those girls that he paints outside, they have a little bit of red in their hair or
on their lips or whatever, and then the background's green.
You know, it's kind of the forest usually.
So green and red, you know, complements.
So he does it all the time, you know.
And a lot of painters do.
I think one of the most popular color compliments is green-red, and also orange and blue, there's
a lot of orange and blues.
Not too many purple and yellows.
But yeah, that's how you do it.
You know, you push opposites against each other.
And they could be muted opposites.
They can be really rich or they could be really muted.
It depends what you're painting.
You know, if you're painting a sunset, you know, a sunset's a great example of color
theory.
You know, what color is the sunset?
What color are the shadows on a sunset?
Right?
It's always usually purple-blue, right?
Because why?
Well, the sun is orange and it's really low on the horizon.
So it's pushing, you know, its color really intensely on the mountains, right?
And so the shadows are the opposite, right?
They're blue-purple.
You know, they're also facing directly up generally towards the sky and the sun is not
washing them out.
But that's a great time to witness how color works in sunset.
It's very difficult to paint that time because you only have like 5 to 10 minutes before
it changes dramatically, but it's a great time to witness really directional light and
what the colors are in the shadows and in the lights.
Okay. But like with...going back to this whole cool warm thing, this is...you're saying this is
cool, but it's not like blue.
It's just cooler because I just wanna make sure people don't misinterpret the warm and
cool.
Because when people say cool, they think blue, and warm, they think orange or red or whatever.
So when you say you've gotta make the light cool, that doesn't literally mean like put
this blue up there.
It could just be a slightly cooler version of this, and that will read it as a cooler
light.
Exactly.
It's a relationship, because there's no intrinsic, "This is cool color, this is a warm color."
You know, it's just in relationship to whatever's next to it.
You know, so on flesh tones, unless you have a really powerful light source like from a
neon light or a flame or something like that, generally like flesh colors are gonna be fairly
muted.
You know, there's not gonna be a lot of color on them at all.
And you know, sometimes it's fun to put a lot of color on them, like a flame or, you
know, an intense gel or like a neon light.
I mean, in the movie industry they do it all the time.
They put a...you know, like they do a detective movie or whatever, they'll maybe have like
a street sign shining on some character in the movie.
But it depends what you wanna say.
And a lot of times those kind of images too connotate that type of scenery.
Like you see a real bright light on someone's face, you kinda think maybe it's like a street
light or some kinda an artificial light.
You don't think they're out in the forest, unless maybe you're doing like an alien abduction
kinda scene.
So your brain interprets right away when you see something like that.
That's why detail is not important with these comps too.
You know, your brain interprets what's going on.
But yeah, warm and cool, that took me a long time to figure out, you know, the differences
between temperatures.
Yeah. And it's usually more...yeah, like it's usually more subtle than people think.
Super subtle.
Like for example, you could see some real nice temperature changes in here.
Like when you compare the light on her hand, it's cooler than the shadows.
And you know, it's cooler than the shadows in here and stuff, so you think, "Okay, that's
a cool light."
But then when you compare that cool light on a hand to the cool light on the....was
that a book or?
It's a piece of paper.
A piece of paper, that piece of paper is cooler than the hand.
So it makes the whole hand feel warm even though the light on the hand is cool.
So it's all these relationships making things feel the way they are.
Yeah. Well, that's a good point too.
Just, I wanna kind of riff on that real quick.
When you do whatever paintings you're doing, you have to make sure that the temperatures
are consistent.
There can't be warm light on her face, cool light on her chest, warm light on her hands.
You know, it'll look odd.
You know, it won't...a lot of times it'll look muddy or it'll look like it's the wrong
value.
Just, sometimes it'll look like it's rubber.
Especially if everything's too warm, things look like they're kinda made out rubber.
So there's all kinds of weird effects that happen if you don't get the temperatures consistent,
you know?
And...I mean, weird things happen with color.
You know, like on that piece of paper, I remember looking at some of the reference photos and
her hand was reflecting some warm back up into that piece of paper.
So there's a degree of reflected light on the paper from her hand, I didn't put it in
the comp but I remember there being, you know, some warms in there too.
And so you never know what color is gonna do.
It's a weird animal, so that's why you really have to be a really good observer.
But the main thing is that your light temperatures are consistent, you know?
Oh yeah, also, you know, you wanna make sure like the temperatures on her skin are the
same temperatures that are on her jacket.
You can see like this is a cool kinda dark.
It might be hard to see that in the video.
But yeah, you've gotta see that in life.
Yeah. Some of the things you're not gonna see.
I mean, photos a lot of times make the blacks just kind of matte and they can't see too
much temperature shifts in them.
But up close, you can, you know?
And that's why it looks good when I put a little warm bits coming through because it's
warms against cools and the temperature shifts playing against each other.
And that's important but the warms can't overwhelm the cools.
Otherwise, it'll kill the overall lighting on the painting, it'll look weird.
Like she has a pattern on there or something.
Okay. So is there any other advice for avoiding muddy colors before we move on the next question?
Well, I mean...yeah, I could give you a bunch.
One thing I would say is, you know, use a different brush for like if you're gonna have
one brush for the light areas of...like if you're doing...let's say you're doing a portrait,
right?
One brush for the light areas, one brush for the dark areas.
And then have another brush for maybe the background and maybe another brush for if
there is like dark areas.
Like...just like this one, for example.
I had one I brush with this, one brush with that.
You know, one brush with this, one brush with that with the shadows.
Because I don't want this color to get into this color, right?
Because that's gonna... if you have a really light color and you mix it into a dark color,
it'll make like chalk.
You know, it...one more way to say it, but it's really easy to do that.
Even...like with my students a lot of times, I'll say, "Well, cool down."
Like maybe they're trying to get this flesh color right here, and I'll say, "Well, cool
that down a little bit."
And generally people will say, "Okay.
I'll add blue to that."
And I'll say, "No, don't add blue to that."
So like for example, if you have ultramarine blue, I would say, "Get some ultramarine blue,
mix that with white, right?
And then so you have like a really light color ultramarine blue, just with white, and then
add that color to the flush tone."
Right, you wanna match the value and then add it to your...
Yeah. You don't want that blue to overwhelm that color.
And it'll also make it darker, so...and you're not necessarily trying to make it darker.
You're just trying to shift the color.
Exactly. Shift he temperature. And they don't make like a light blue.
Oh, they do, their king's blue.
Like more of like a king's blue.
Like if you had king's blue, that'd be great.
Kings' blue is very much of a convenience color.
But if you just have like a real simple primary palette, you don't wanna kill the initial
color, whatever it is.
So you don't wanna add a real powerful color to adjust the slight temperature of, for example,
a flesh tone.
You just wanna do it a little bit.
I do the same with green.
If I had like Viridian, I'd add a white to the Viridian first and then add that to the
flesh color.
Because you're just shifting it a little bit, just tempering it, you know, just a little bit.
But I see that all the time.
I say, "Well, you know, cool that down, warm that up, or whatever," and they'll add like
orange to something or, you know, ultramarine blue.
And then the color and the value will totally change.
And, you know, students just do things and they think that this is the right way to do
it.
They don't even think about it, they just do it.
And it's like, "Whoa, geez.
You had nice flesh tone and now it's gone."
You know, the value and the temperature are both completely off the scale.
So yeah, you're just trying to temper the shifts in color.
And it's important.
Like even on this on this dog, you can see...see these little blue shifts right here to where
his paw was closer to the blue fabric?
It's gonna have more influence with the blue.
I didn't add like this color to that, right?
It's just a blue with a little bit of white to that color.
And that's how I got that color.
If added this to that, it would be darker and almost greenish.
Right. Yeah. Because you're adding it to a yellowish tone.
Right.
Yeah. It would, yeah. Okay.
While we have you...this one here, you brought this.
This is the demo that you did for us.
We went over to your studio and we filmed you painting this one for three days.
And this, we recorded it and we have a separate product at proko.com/westerberg
Really, you could just explore how Aaron paints.
He explains everything, his whole process.
I really like being able to create something, give birth to something that's my own.
You can tell a lot about a person by looking at a painting that the person did.
Every single painting that you do or I do is a self portrait.
And you can tell exactly who that person was and how they were thinking when they were
painting it.
A lot of personality goes into a painting.
That's something that's gonna exist beyond me and also, I kinda have that lineage of
the painters who came before me.
A human being is very complex.
You know, color is very complex.
The more you understand it, the more freedom you have in painting.
If you're kind of new to color and you're not really comfortable painting with a lot
of color, I would say, paint with a lot of color.
Set up a still a life or a model or a figure or whatever.
And put a lot of color in there.
The more you try to paint things with more color, the easier it is to understand color.
You'd be surprised at how much you learn and how much you grow.
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