PAINTING WITH YELLOWS

IT'S THE END OF FEBRUARY, AND MY DAFFODILS are coming up. Spring is really coming, and I'm in the mood to paint daffodils.

BUT

PAINTING YELLOWS can be tricky. Sometimes when shading we end up with green or mud instead of a color that looks like a shaded yellow. Below is how I made a color chart to help me keep my yellows pure looking.

Yellow doesn't get to a very dark value, so we have to trick the eye sometimes. To begin this chart, I picked some of my favorite yellows (for yours, just use a warm and a cool to keep it simple)* plus raw sienna. I have 8 squares in the top row, so I could choose 7 yellows plus my raw sienna. 

Below you'll see how I started my chart, skipping every other color to give it a chance to dry before painting next to that space.

Below you see all my colors. I tried to do cool to warmest, but one is out of place.

So left to right, I have raw sienna, Nickel Titanate, Hansa Azo, Cadmium medium, Isoindolilne (that is out of place, much warmer than..) New Gamboge, and Quinacridone Gold.  The left hand stripe beneath each square is that same color, which will be glazed over when dry. 

The stripes on the left of each color show that yellow with another color glazed over it.

(I used burnt sienna in the second row; purple in the third row; perm red in the fourth row).

The stripe on the right side of each color show that yellow mixed on the palette with the new color.

So in the first column on right your first row shows raw sienna by itself. The row beneath it shows raw sienna glazed over with burnt sienna. And to the right of that is raw sienna mixed on the palette with burnt sienna. The third row shows raw sienna and purple, glazed, then mixed. The last row shows raw sienna with red, glazed, then mixed. 

The purpose of this was to show the possibilities of yellows I could make and what colors will make attractive shades of the yellows I'm shooting for. You could also experiment with a color glazed over with yellow instead of yellow glazed over with a color. 

This picture shows a daffodil done by underglazing with purples. The lemon and pear are done wet into wet. You can often take advantage of the warmer yellows, using them for shaded areas. 

TWO EFFECTIVE WAYS TO SHADE YELLOWS

Below are six experiments. Numbers 1, 2, and 3 are underglazed. A shading color is used to "model" or sculpt the lemon, much like shading a drawing. #1 uses burnt umber; #2 uses purple; #3 uses burnt sienna. (You can try other underglazes, like neutral tint, dark greens, etc. Play and see what works.)

#4 is wet into wet, using hansa yellow, raw sienna, and a bit of green. #5 is wet into wet using hansa yellow, quin gold, and a bit of orange. #6 is simply painted with hansa yellow only. 

Now you can see the result of glazing over the dried undercoat. Numbers 1, 2, 1nd 3 are glazed over

with hansa yellow.And number six, the one with just a layer of yellow, is shaded over with raw sienna and more hansa.

*Warm yellows lean to orange; cool yellows look lemony, sometimes almost green, and are a lighter value than the warm ones. 

In class I showed a book by Billy Showell, who is a botanical artist. Gorgeous flowers! She likes to mix her own mid tones (like neutrals) to use as underglazes in pale and white flowers, using one part cad red medium, one part cad yellow pale, and two parts French ultramarine.