After completing this course, I hope you’ll learn that you never need to buy specific tubes of paint. With just a few primary colors, you can create an immense array of color! And by dedicating yourself to just a few foundational colors, you’ll gain a deep understanding of color and pigment more quickly than you would if you had to constantly work between multiple versions of every primary and secondary color.

Not only will we explore the limited palette, we will also cover strategies for mixing color, creating harmonious color compositions, strong focal points, and color schemes. I will take you through several projects that will help you learn every aspect of color. We will especially emphasize the exploration and design of reduced-chroma colors (also known as neutrals / muted colors / greys, etc). Many artists feel that their paintings are “muddy” and blame neutral colors. However, a muddy painting is usually the result of a poorly designed / chaotic color design rather than the colors themselves. We’ll go in depth into neutrals, color design, and even take a look at mixing every skin tone.

After some elementary projects, we’ll move into a few different capstone projects. We will find that we can use every primary color to paint a subject that is “white,” we will learn how to take quick color notes, and finally we will learn how the masters created such compelling color in their works. I will show you how to simplify the process of creating a “master color study.”

While this course is meant for beginner and intermediate painters, there is an assumption that you know some basic color theory, such as how to mix secondary and tertiary colors. If not, there are many color theory courses here on Skillshare that you should also check out! I just didn’t want this course to replicate the common intricacies of color theory.

I had initially planned on dividing the subject of color into shorter, focused courses because I worried that a long course would feel overwhelming. However, segmenting a course may lead to unnecessary confusion since all these concepts are linked and student might find some of the courses and not others. Ultimately I decided it would make sense to present it all in a single course with lessons that proceed in a logical order.

I suggest getting and overview of this course, and then going through one project at a time. While some projects are simple and loose, others will be more of a challenge. If you begin to feel frustrated or overwhelmed, I encourage you to take a break. Color is a subject as deep as it is wide and no artist can master it in a day!