Triads

 There are three primary colors - red, blue, and yellow. From these three colors you can paint most anything. Paint companies make many different reds, blues, and yellows. They make cool and warm colors - think pinks, turquoise, lime vs. fire engine red, navy blue, army green. So painting with a cadmium red is very different from painting with an alizarin crimson. Using a Prussian blue is different than ultra marine blue. Sap green is different from Hookers green (I always thought they should have a hooker's red :) Etc. My friend, Barb, has been taking an online watercolor class in using different colors. She bought a small Daniel Smith ultimate mixing set for her class. One of the things they practiced was painting in triads - using three primary colors of various cools/warms. She made a little watercolor book on the various triads. It was a neato book. While I was there last week, we tried doing one of her watercolor triad exercises. Using a photo that Barb took of pears we painted the pairs using different triads. Barb has done this several times. This was my first try. I used Quinacridone rose, phthalo blue and some cool yellow. Barb used some other triad. Here are a few of our pear paintings: Barb's

Mine While my little art student was here this week, we did it again on a smaller scale (only painting four pears). It is a really good exercise.