The Color Continuum

Catherine Hearding demonstrates how she utilizes color to enhance the mood of her landscapes

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In the nearly 20 years that I have been teaching watercolor, the biggest struggle for students has been working effectively with color. As artists, we look for ways to simulate light. The subject will be influenced by sunlight, clouds, reflected light or whatever is nearby. Too often students neglect the influence of the object's environment, and that can lead to a painting that is devoid of emotion. The job of an artist is to tell a story or express an emotion. Using color to help tell that story will engage the viewer and create connections. If there is sunlight present, there will be areas of pure hue color that attract our attention and transform a painting from boring to exciting. We need to train our eyes to see this reflected color. To make a painting that draws the viewer in or creates a mood, we can change the color to be more expressive. We can mix blue and orange together and get gray. But mix those two unequally and colors range from a dark gray-blue to a warm brown or orange. The color is a continuum from blue to orange and the selections are many. Using these color continuums allows us a nearly unlimited choice of harmonious color. In the demo, I use contrasting color to set up pleasing variations with limited pigments, which all become closely related as the painti