Opaque colour mixing

Again, I completed this exercise in both acrylic and oils and have photographed the opaque mix next to the transparent wash for comparison.


I first attempted to match the single graded sheet by adding white to the oils. This was much easier to complete than by thinning the paint with turps. I feel I matched the tones of the original well, although there are still a few “stripes” in the paint – I think one of the reasons for this is that I used a fairly wide brush to apply the paint. If I had used a smaller brush, and added the white more gradually, I think this would have given a smoother gradation.


The acrylic was also a much smoother application that the watered down paint, but again, was still quite difficult to paint smoothly because of the speed of drying. I know you can mix additives (flow improver) with acrylic to assist with this and I think if you wanted a really smooth blend, you would have to do this.

Oils

Acrylic

Oils

The contrast between the two techniques is strong – as mentioned before, the opaque colours are much smoother, both to apply and to look at, than the transparent colour mixes.   However, as I had already practiced with the transparent colours, it may also be that my technique is improving. 

I found it was also much easier to achieve the tones I wanted with the opaque mixes – probably because it is easier to see the colour you are painting when adding white, whereas the transparent colours still basically look the same on your palette before application.

We are asked to look at ways in which the two techniques could work together: first, a transparent wash can be used as an underpainting – either as to stain a canvas, or as an underpainting to accurately do a “first draft” of your painting.

Transparent paint can be used as a glaze over more opaque paint, either to give an overall colour effect (ie, pale yellow to add an overall warm tone) or to allow the underneath colour to show through the transparent paint (I remember seeing a painting at Chelsea Flower Show - the flower had been painted over a very bright ground (shocking pink I think) which gave an overall “glow” and brightness to the finished painting).  I have compared the effects further after completing the monochrome studies exercise.