Tom Birmingham – I Can’t Draw, and You Can Too!: Color Mixing Simplified (Online); Saturdays, August 31-September 21, 2024

Dates: Saturdays, August 31-September 21, 2024
Time: 10:00 AM-12:00 PM Pacific Time, 1:00-3:00 PM Eastern Time, 6:00-8:00 PM London Time
Level: All
Medium: All (Tom will work in watercolor)

Supply List

Color is one of the most enjoyable and satisfying qualities of painting. By applying a range of hues that offer harmony as well as contrast, you can make a composition sing. But too often color mixing ends in mud, far from what we were looking for, leaving us frustrated and discouraged.

I know! I’ve been there!

Join me for a four-week exploration of the split-primaries palette, and discover for yourself how mastering the qualities of just six pigments will give you control of your color-mixing and bring ease to your painting practice.

It can be overwhelming to choose paints. With all the colors and all the brands, it’s easy to get bogged down with too many choices. The Split Primary Palette is used by tens of thousands of painters to craft the colors they want. The added benefit is that your final painting will have so much more harmony as your mixed colors work gracefully together.

We’ll explore pure, true colors, as well as how to blend more naturalized hues, neutralized colors, and chromatic grays. We’ll develop a range of colors that resemble the gorgeous single hues you find in nature. You’ll be amazed at the range and subtlety of tones you can produce from such a limited palette!

We’ll use still life and landscape to apply the color-mixing techniques to an observed painting practice. Using a color approach based on asking just three simple questions, you’ll find you can make a more pleasing painting than if you struggle to achieve “true” or “exact” color.
Asking those three simple questions, we’ll use color variations to depict shadow, form, and volume through direct observation and response rather than didactic learning or mastering “tricks”.

BTW – this is an excellent method for a traveling sketch practice. You can record your observations of the world, carrying supplies the size of a paperback book.