October 24, 2023
This week I have been experimenting with using a mother color to harmonize a color palette. Most of my paintings are harmonized through the use of a limited palette, but I have always been curious about the mother color concept.
I love an almost-scientific exploration, so I started by pulling three colors at random from my bowl of paint tubes: W&N crimson red (PR170), prussian blue hue (PV23, PB15:1, PBk9) and phthalo green /blue shade (PG7). These are three very dark value, very saturated pigments; I figured they would be a great test of the mother color concept.
I then chose three mother colors for three different experiments: Liquitex unbleached titanium (a very pale creamy yellow, PW6, PY42, PBk11, PR101), Golden raw umber (PBr7) and W&N yellow ochre (PY43)
The unbleached titanium, as you can imagine, did not have much of an impact on the three colors I chose. It definitely helped them look harmonious, but they were still a little much for me.
The raw umber, on the other hand, made all three colors much deeper, richer versions of themselves. It made them even darker on the value scale so I did add a good bit of white to each of them for a little contrast. Adding white only made the blue and green more beautiful. By adding white to the phthalo green and raw umber combo, I discovered a lovely, more subtle and complex version of a phthalo turquoise tone. The brick red that resulted with the addition of raw umber looked gorgeous against the pale versions of the green and blue.
The yellow ochre was really the mother color winner though. With just a bit of yellow ochre added to each of the three colors, they are still themselves, but more interesting. Then I tried adding more yellow ochre to each color, to the point where the proportion of yellow ochre was higher than the other color in the mix. I really loved those colors together - the harmony is supersized!
Not necessarily beautiful colors independently, but together they are very impactful.
I am looking forward to exploring this concept with pigments I use more regularly.
Prompts for the Week:
Find a painting from a year ago. Put a photo of it in your sketchbook and then write about it as if this is the first time you are seeing it. Describe it and how it makes you feel. How is this work similar to what you are making today? How is it different?
Start a free expression painting with a triangle. See where that takes you.
Do you use a mother color to harmonize your paintings? Please share! Do you always use the same color? Which one?