I think I need advice before continuing. I feel like the tulip petals are muddy looking again and they don’t look silky. Not sure how to achieve that. All advice welcome. Leaves? Stems?
Hi Patricia, Yellow can be hard. It’s difficult to get those shadow colors in without making it look dirty. I can see what you mean in your drawing – it is starting to look a bit “dirty”, but I also think that it’s still working. I think that you need your main highlights to be the white of the paper to give it that silky/shimmery feel. Can you try to erase out your main highlights? (Or if there is watercolor on there, try to lift out some yellow?) What color did you use for your grisaille? Yellow can be difficult to get the right shadow colors without making it look dirty. The struggle is real with yellow. I often start with Earth Green as my grisaille color, and start pretty light. Then after adding in my local color (yellow), I will slowly build those shadow areas up with some more earth green. Then, in some of my darkest shadow areas, I’ll add in a very light layer of purple. And I keep building in that local color as I go, while leaving the highlights white until the very end, and then evaluate if the white highlights are working. If earth green isn’t working for you, sometimes burnt ochre or light yellow ochre can work nicely in some shadow areas for yellow subjects. This has a beautiful quality as is. I think it’s gorgeous.
I used Olive Green Yellowish for the grisaille; much too dark. It had a nice toning effect until I added the cadmium yellow and then I couldn’t get it to blend. Yellow seems to clump on the surface of the paper preventing it from blending. I will definitely follow up on your suggestions. Which purple would you recommend?
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I think I need advice before continuing. I feel like the tulip petals are muddy looking again and they don’t look silky. Not sure how to achieve that. All advice welcome. Leaves? Stems?
Hi Patricia, Yellow can be hard. It’s difficult to get those shadow colors in without making it look dirty. I can see what you mean in your drawing – it is starting to look a bit “dirty”, but I also think that it’s still working. I think that you need your main highlights to be the white of the paper to give it that silky/shimmery feel. Can you try to erase out your main highlights? (Or if there is watercolor on there, try to lift out some yellow?) What color did you use for your grisaille? Yellow can be difficult to get the right shadow colors without making it look dirty. The struggle is real with yellow. I often start with Earth Green as my grisaille color, and start pretty light. Then after adding in my local color (yellow), I will slowly build those shadow areas up with some more earth green. Then, in some of my darkest shadow areas, I’ll add in a very light layer of purple. And I keep building in that local color as I go, while leaving the highlights white until the very end, and then evaluate if the white highlights are working. If earth green isn’t working for you, sometimes burnt ochre or light yellow ochre can work nicely in some shadow areas for yellow subjects. This has a beautiful quality as is. I think it’s gorgeous.
I used Olive Green Yellowish for the grisaille; much too dark. It had a nice toning effect until I added the cadmium yellow and then I couldn’t get it to blend. Yellow seems to clump on the surface of the paper preventing it from blending. I will definitely follow up on your suggestions. Which purple would you recommend?