A fun way to explore and grow color knowledge. This exercise can be used with a still life also but we paint from the figure here. 10-15 minutes poses; that's it!
More value plan work here! You have to premix the values as guidelines, then assign their roles; two for shadow, one for light, or one for shadow and two for light.
Value plans are most important! What are Notans? Notan is the Japanese word for dark and light. This can either be a sketchbook process or take out a canvas as I did here and time yourself.
SIMPLIFIED PLANES OF THE HEAD, BY PEGGI KROLL ROBERTS
You don't have to consider yourself a portrait painter to paint a head that looks natural and pleasing. The proportions I show you I will use every time as a springboard for placement of the features and underlying simple planes of the head.
It's important to find the way you like to approach a painting. Some prefer to sketch first and others prefer to make marks. In this demonstration, I paint these two figures with no preliminary drawing.
See how versatile just two colors and white can be! This lesson really helps with learning how to mix color from limited palettes applied to a simple still life.
Pacific Rhythms is a painting demonstration with the Ray Roberts thinking out loud while he paints. Many of the foundations are covered with several key points to painting the ocean.