How I Choose Colors for a New Painting- Video

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Why is it important to plan colors before starting a painting? How is a limited color palette useful? How will learning about the Color Wheel help us create more successful and professional-looking artwork?


In the video included within this blog post, I'll be sharing how I go about selecting my colors prior to starting a new piece. I'll share my thinking process as I go through this method and will be offering lots of tips pertaining to color.

In past blog posts and YouTube videos, I have mentioned how color is an essential Element of Art to learn about as a beginner artist. The reason? When we're looking to create a visual composition, we have to think about how different parts fit together into a whole. 

And color plays a huge role in making a visual composition look harmonious and cohesive. 

When it comes to a visual composition, all individual elements are connected. Each one has an effect over how we perceive the elements around it. 

And just like how you wouldn't throw on an outfit with a ton of different colors and textures that don't mesh well together, you have to think about how things will look like in a painting when appreciated as a whole. 

It's not about one element in the piece, but how the different elements included intermix to effectively transmit the idea or message we're trying to get across. 

It's incredibly important that any beginner artist who is serious about improving their painting makes time to learn about the Color Wheel. This is an incredibly important tool that allows us to understand relationships between colors so that we're not only able to create effective color mixtures during the painting process, but also prepare color schemes that work well.

Limiting the amount of colors that you use in a painting is also very useful because the more colors you use, the more disorganized your palette will be, the more likely color mixtures will lead to mud, and the more incoherent the end-results. 

Whatever you do, stay away from randomly selecting colors during the painting process and dedicate at least a bit of time to plan for your painting. I promise you, there's much more of a chance that you'll end up with great results. 



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Watercolor Supplies Used in the Video

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Royal & Langnickel Zen Line Watercolor Brushes $2.69-$5.39

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