MORE ON THE MONARCH BUTTERFLY

MORE ABOUT COLORL MIXING

In the following steps, I've tried to stay within my basic 3 colors that I started with: Azo Yellow, Cobalt Blue, and Rose Madder Lake. I have to admit to adding one of my favorites, Transparent Pyrrol Orange, in one of the steps, just because.

In the above picture, I mixed a black using an orange made from my red and yellow and my cobalt.You could use the red and green of the colors you've chosen.  (The miskit was still on the butterfly wings) I painted in the black on the butterfly wings and on the body with a first layer. When it dried, I painted over the darkest blacks with another layer of black. This is an example of creating an opaque color in the lesson on 5 ways to mix color. Note that some of the blacks are lighter than other parts.

The next step used the GLAZING method of mixing colors. I used my cobalt blue to create shadows and separations in the pink flowers. (My miskit is still on the center of the flowers in this picture above)

The next step involves more GLAZING. With miskit still on the flowers, on the back flower I glazed more rose madder lake to unify the shadows and the flower. And just to show one color glazed over another, I used transparent pyrrol orange over the front flower. 

To create the background, I reverted to CHARGING color into color. 

But first, a little about backgrounds (which, I admit, are not my strong point)

What you want to be aware of are ways to make things that are important come forward; things less important to recede into the background. 

If you want to emphasize something, you need some kind of contrast: light against dark value; clean color against dulled color; soft edges or hard edges; changes in texture; complimentary colors. there are others, but you get the picture. In general, warm colors will come forward more than cool. Details will come forward more. 

To make something recede, it's sort of the opposite. Make the values closer together; subtler changes in edges (or edges blurred); colors that are closer in temperature; more greyed or neutralized colors.

That said, I wanted the orange flower to come forward more. I tried for a neutralized blue in the background, which would be the opposite of the orange. (neutralized by putting oranges and some greens in the wet blue) On one side I salted to change texture, but the other side wasn't wet enough to accept the salt. So I'll have to fix that later. 

The butterfly has lots of detail, so I did the area around it with a pale, neutralized blue. (light value against dark value; opposite colors; detail against no detail)

I removed the miskit after I darkened the bottom of the centers a little bit. I painted the legs and antennae of the butterfly with a mixture of orange and blue. I painted the shadows with cobalt blue. 

These last few steps were done at home, not in class.

Here I've painted in the yellows on the flower centers. If you look closely you might see that I also lifted a little bit on the flower petals and on the wings. 

I darkened the stem just a little under the flower and washed the salted area over with water. I washed over some of the whites on the wings with water to blur the harshness of some of the spots. 

It's nearly done. I just need to tape it up to my kitchen wall and look at it over the next week or so to see what else needs to be done.