Colored Pencils

Last night I started a new class on colored pencils. I was very happy to learn it is not a class about drawing, it is a class about color. Having taken several watercolor classes I've learned a lot about color, value and hue. I've learned to look at an object carefully before deciding what color it is. and I've learned how to mix colors to get what I want. Colored pencils work similiarly to watercolors in that you mix colors together, laying down red then yellow to get orange. This allows you to get a reder orange or a yellow orange or gradually move from red to yellow in something like a sunset. Last night we worked on making color wheels. Creating a full spectrum of color from yellow, cyan and magenta pencils. This is the first time I'd heard of using magenta instead of red in an artistic endeavor. Of course magenta is the color used in tricolor printers and works very well in mixing with yellow and blue, this the pigment theory. Iterestingly enough when all the color wheels were displayed in front of the room each one matched the colors on the printout we were given rather well. Yet they were all quite different from one another. I've always thought that each person sees color differently and what looks bluer to one person looks grener to the next.

I started taking art classes about four years ago at the suggestion of a friend. Seeing my color wheel up there looking just as good if not better than all the rest I realized how much I've learned in the past few years. I've never considered myself artistic in the least but now even if I still can't draw I can certainly mix colors.