Make Your Colors POP

"The road to color harmony begins with understanding the characteristics and properties of the colors on your palette-how to mix and match them so that they work for you.  You must appreciate the full potential of every color and the effect each color has on another." Margaret Kessler

I've had the book called "Color Harmony in Your Paintings" by Margaret Kessler for sometime and I know that when I first received it I flipped through the pages but up to this point I haven't really studied it.  Today I am reading through it's pages and am anticipating the information that I am going to glean from within it's covers.

I find myself underlining several great points on page 15 that deal with the topic of Intensity.  Kessler says, "The key to making your paintings 'pop' is to juxtapose bright hues against dull ones."  I think that I'm going to write this down on a note card and post it on my easel because even though during my painting lessons this has been discussed, I find that in the heat of painting these important foundational points can be neglected.  You really want an object to "POP" you need to paint the lighter values next to a darker color.  Leaves in a tree are a great example.  As you increasingly lighten the value of your leaf color you want to position the brightest leaves in areas that are surrounded by darkness.  I did this in my painting "Fallen" and the birch saplings seem to almost jump off the canvas. Lily also had me place light colors for rocks in the shadows and dark colors for the rocks in the sunlit areas.

Painting completed during my painting lessons with teacher Lily Adamczyk

Last Leaf

This concept again was used in my painting Last Leaf.  The darkness of the pine needles cause the light gold tones in the leaf to just pop off the canvas.