It's really difficult to blend tones using gouache and after oil paints its a positive nightmare, but take heart, the ancient monks also struggled. They mixed three tones of a colour - light, mid-tone and dark.Top tip - for the darkest tone, try mixing the complementary colour rather than black into the base colour). 1. Either blend the colours as you go by painting the lightest and mid tones so that they almost touch then while they are still wet, mix them in situ in the area you are shading … [Read more...]
H – a modern illuminated letter
You may remember that I blogged about choosing colours for my illuminated h using Photoshop.Well, here's the sketch again. This is for the Lindisfarne project where I am contributing a page for an amazing project. My page has a modern illuminated h with (hopefully) an African ethnic feel to it. When I was ready to start painting I found the colour scheme too complicated because the lettering scratched out of gold was already rather busy. I opted for French Ultramarine, Burnt Sienna and gold. I … [Read more...]