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Early Spring Flowers – and Why Painting What You See Isn’t Always Enough

March 1, 2019 By: Paul8 Comments

Early Spring Flowers – Oil on Panel, 5 x 7 inches.

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You’ve probably often heard people say that you should paint what you see, not what you know.

Well I don’t think that’s the whole story.

Let me explain:

What you know can trip you up, yes. But it depends what type of knowledge we’re talking about.

There’s a kind of knowledge that actually helps us see better, paint better.

Take this colour for example, would you call this a yellow or a green?

I think I’d call it a green.

How about the colour of the primroses in the painting above? Yellow or green?

I think I’d call it a yellow.

But they’re actually the same colour.

I mean exactly the same.

Here they are together.

The point here is that unaided, our brains will often make assumptions about colour that can take us away from the visual impression.

Because seeing isn’t just about our eyes. In fact, our eyes are really just the receiving equipment.

The act of seeing happens in our brains.

We take an impression from the outside world and construct a perception from it. And that perception is complicated.

I think what’s probably happening here is that I know that primroses are yellow. So I tend to assume that they’re more yellow and less green. In fact they’re way more green that I would have imagined.

That’s not to say that using what we know is always a bad thing. It doesn’t always get in the way. In fact what we know can really help us get colour more right – if it’s knowledge that we’ve trained specifically for painting.

For example, I know that the colour of a thing in shadow will be very similar in hue to the colour it is in the light.

So once I’d correctly found the actual local colour of these primroses, I knew with some certainty what the shadow colour would be. And I was right.

Here are the colours I mixed to paint the primroses, from light to shadow. The first four chips are all the same hue. The last, darkest chip is slightly more yellow, less green (you might say a little warmer).

The darker colours there look very green. I certainly wouldn’t describe them as yellow.

The difference between this kind of knowledge and the knowledge that gets in the way of perceiving colour accurately is that this knowledge has come from deliberately finding out what colour things really appear in light and shadow – using Munsell chips to make sure I get it right.

It’s knowledge that I’ve earned from deliberate practice. It’s specific to painting.

The knowledge that would have tripped me up (primroses = yellow) comes from somewhere else, from generic information I’ve learned about the world. It’s not useful. At least, not when I’m painting.

It may also be that the greenish-blue background was setting up a simultaneous contrast effect that made the primroses seem more yellow than green.

Here’s another bit of knowledge I’ve trained for though: If I hit the colours right, then that same effect will be present in my painting. I don’t need to allow for it.

But still, if I’d gone with my assumption about that colour, I would have made it much too yellow and my painting would have looked wrong.

Train what you know

This is why I think we need to practice colour, and practice getting it right. Because very often, our previous knowledge will make us get it wrong.

Best wishes and thanks for reading,

Paul

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About Paul

I'm a (mostly) self-taught artist. I paint realism in oils, mostly still life. I share my work, my evolving process and what knowledge I've gained on my own learning journey here, in the hope that it might help you along on
yours.

Comments

  1. 1

    Allison says

    March 1, 2019 at 3:16 pm

    Excellent blog and very nicely explained. I shall try it out on some flowers for myself. When I get hone.

    Reply
    • 2

      Paul says

      March 2, 2019 at 5:19 pm

      oooh, yes do! Let me know how it goes.

      Reply
  2. 3

    Michael Z. says

    March 2, 2019 at 2:45 am

    Nice work, Paul, as usual! What I like most in this painting is the way the individual brushstrokes on the petals have actual ridges that mimic the ridges found in the petals of these types of flowers. They pop off the surface of the painting! (Good job of color-matching as well)

    Reply
    • 4

      Paul says

      March 2, 2019 at 5:19 pm

      thanks Michael 🙂

      Yes, it’s almost like sculpting the petals with the paint. That’s lead white painted very thickly. Lovely stuff, you can’t do this with titanium, it just doesn’t have the texture.

      Reply
  3. 5

    Do says

    March 2, 2019 at 3:53 pm

    There’s an eternal debate on whether you should paint what you see or what you know. The most frustrating thing for students is teachers who contradict each other on this topic. I finally came up with this personal understanding: paint what you see with what you know. More and more I’m able to select between what I keep from the original motif, and then how to tweak it with I know works or doesn’t when you paint it.
    Thanks for the post, cheers

    Reply
    • 6

      Paul says

      March 2, 2019 at 5:18 pm

      Exactly, yes. the problems start when the “know” part isn’t based on understanding and knowledge. Then it’s a problem.

      That’s why I say “train what you know”. Then it can be used to improve the work.

      Reply
      • 7

        Do says

        March 8, 2019 at 5:12 pm

        Yes, very good point about what is meant by ”knowledge”. Too often it’s overlooked. And also People want to break the rules without knowing what the rules are.

        Reply
  4. 8

    Ted B. says

    March 6, 2019 at 3:54 pm

    I know there’s all-sorts of scientific and psychological explanations on why neutralized Yellow appears Green. I just like to enjoy it as one of the Mysteries of the Universe, and one of God’s little chuckles.

    Just like how some people see some Grays as “Bluish” or even slightly-“Green”, …and others see them as pure “neutral Gray”.

    Reply

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Hi, I’m Paul

I'm a (mostly) self-taught artist. I paint realism in oils, mostly still life. I share my work, my evolving process and what knowledge I've gained on my own learning journey here, in the hope that it might help you on yours.
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