Exploring Color Schemes: In Landscape Painting

Hi,

I am Mandar Marathe and welcome to “Exploring Color Schemes” Class.

This is a beginner friendly class that teaches you how by selecting a particular set of colors you can create a specific look or mood in your paintings.

The set of colors you use in a painting is called the color scheme of that painting. Careful selection of these colors will define the impact your painting creates. In a way, color selection is a part of your artistic style.

As artists, we have the freedom to use any color scheme that we think necessary to create impactful paintings. We are not bound to just copy what we see in nature.

In this class we begin by looking at the basics of the color wheel.

I’ll also explain how the secondary and tertiary colors are mixed using the 3 primary colors. Then we’ll go through 7 different color schemes one by one.

We’ll also talk about what color masks are and how they differ from typical color schemes.

To put this knowledge in practice, I’ll show you how I paint one scene in 8 different color schemes. This portion of the class will teach you how color schemes are actually used while painting. We’ll compare these paintings side by side and discuss how they compare with each other.

While painting these scenes, I’ll show you how I mix all the intermediate colors in the painting using the colors of the color scheme. This knowledge will improve your color mixing expertise.

This ability to create a particular mood in the scene will allow you to create authentic works of art and you’ll not feel enslaved by the photo reference or the live scene in front of you.

I’ll use watercolour and gouache in this class but you can use whichever medium you are comfortable with.

I have included a reference photo with this class. Your project or assignment for this class will be to paint a landscape based on this photo using different color schemes.

Once you are done with this class and the project, you’ll be able to create paintings based on your own interpretation of the scene and will be able to create the required impact by using an appropriate color scheme for it.

This will advance you several steps further on your journey towards your artistic freedom.

I am very happy to have you in this class and so let’s get started!