Peter's Sketchbook

[Peter]

Created some colour wheels based on what ronna suggested but instead of using cad yellow I used yellow ochre like Tristan suggested...
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Hello Peter,
you've said the following: "Abit conflicted really, the flesh colour wheel doesn't really look like the colour of skin to be but I could be wrong". Take a look at the color wheel from my photo, do you notice how dark are the circles 5 and 4? And right near them the corresponding triangles DO look like a flesh tones. Take a loooook this happens because author lightened all the colors with white. You didn't. Oh, I'm sorry, you actually did lighten them up, but you need more, a lot more. And pardon me for the silly question, but why does your "red triangle" (№3) is soo maroon or burgundy??? This color also needs to be lighten up and mixed a lil bit more with green in order to become less vivid.

Oh and one more interesting thing I've read about in some Russian book, before the beginning of the work artists cover the canvas with a thin layer of oil to make the first application of paint more fluid, easy to move and cover the canvas. I wish I new it before you started the painting with umber.
Good luck.

 
Tbh I thought adding more white would really saturate the colours. If mine do look like flesh tones then I'll stick with it. Regarding the 4th colour, no matter how much green I added it just remained red! tried adding a little green like the author said but when that didn't look right just kept on adding it. Guess I needed alot more green.

I actually did cover the canvas first in a thin layer. used some gamblin (turps) to thin the paint, covered the surface and let the paint set for a good 30 mins before I started, then I either removed paint for the hightlights using a brush or cotton wool bud or added paint to darken. Same method that Jeff uses and one I've used beofre in the past. :)

Is that russian book the one where there is also a drawing book from the same author and its about the russian academic approach? Been meaning to get a copy of both.