So now that you know how to lighten, what's the easiest way to make your colors darker?
A Shade is simply any color with black added.
Just as with making tints, you can mix any of the twelve pure colors together.Then simply add any amount of black and you have created a shade of the mixture.
That means you can go from an extremely dark, nearly black to a barely shaded pure hue.
Most artists use black sparingly because it can quickly destroy your main color. Some artists prefer not to use it at all. Instead they understand the rules of color well enough to make their own black mixtures.
Shades are deep, powerful and mysterious. Be careful not to use too much black as it can get a little overpowering. These darks work well in a masculine environment. They are best used as dark accents in art and marketing graphics.
this is fun - I very meanly made the students I was teaching paint a picture in watercolours just using one colour and maybe black - we did look at Delft tiles and Chinese brush painting first as inspiration - they still weren't impressed
oh, yes, every photo in that collage has some mysterious quality about it. love the information, i get to learn something everyday or every time i'm here. great collage, yet again. my favourite? the road on the uppermost left. brilliant!
@shannew My favorite lesson when I was in painting mode was to divide a large paper into quarters and sketch in the same landscape in all four, then do one painted in natural color, one in monochromatic, one in complimentary. And one in split conplimentary. We used acrylics or tempura for that. The kids will complain and say it is stupid but love the final product.
Also for kids who fear failure and rip up papers and swear they can't. I have found that reminding them there are no right way to do made uo things like dragons and talking about the many types of dragons in "how to train your dragon" and then assigning a dragon painting frees their imagination like nothing I've ever tried before
sadly I was working on the entry certificate in art and design which was horribly prescriptive. And trying to cover two years which had different curricular for the two years - and finding I was having to teach them everything
Also for kids who fear failure and rip up papers and swear they can't. I have found that reminding them there are no right way to do made uo things like dragons and talking about the many types of dragons in "how to train your dragon" and then assigning a dragon painting frees their imagination like nothing I've ever tried before