One thing that intrigues me about music is how the feeling of a single melody note can change when heard over one chord making a transition to a different chord. You can hear it in the "a-men" of a doxology. It's the same note for both syllables, but the "a" will usually have a V chord underneath it and the "men" will transition to a I chord. The influence of the chord change causes a shift in the feeling of the melody note. We can achieve a similar feeling shift with a single color.
Here's another exercise I enjoy that helps tune our color sense of such a response.
Now that the choices are made, here's how the exercise goes. We'll call the first one Color A and the second, Color B.
1. Make several swatches with Color A.
2. Surround the first one with Color B unchanged.
3. Mix some white into Color B and surround the next swatch with the mix.
4. Continue to make changes to Color B by adding white as well as a gray plus white.
Here are some of my samples.
Now, focus from splotch to splotch on just Color A and notice how the feeling of that color changes with different versions of color B surrounding it.
Tip: You can do this exercise with any set of two colors. To become better acquainted with your current palette of colors, begin with two tube colors you normally use. To keep the sense of harmony in the exercise, make only value and intensity changes to color B.
This is just another training exercise that, when practiced often enough, can do wonders to our color sensitivity. You will actually feel the difference in how you sense your color mixes while you are painting.
Happy painting,
Dianne
P.S.Join us on the Facebook forum where a new challenge appears each Wednesday.
