• classes
  • VIDA Collection
  • Minted
  • Privacy Policy

Ria Sharon

pondering creativity, process, and making art

  • Email
  • Instagram
  • Medium
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter

Test color palettes

October 24, 2020 by riasharon

tropical palettes

Warm, “tropical”

more palettes

To test with portraits

Filed Under: color theory, DIY art school

Portrait studies

October 24, 2020 by riasharon

How loose do I want to do portraits? I did a series of “sketches” yesterday to play around with that but also decided to explore several color palettes and mediums (oil pastels versus pen versus straight up gouache).

greta gerwig sketch

I really like this palette but not sure I liked the oil pastel lines. I like the color. Maybe if my sheet is bigger so the lines are not so big relative to the composition.

semi geesture portrait

I love the colors (the balance of yellows and blues) but the linework feels contrived.

leni robredo sketch

I didn’t like my color selection — it’s too real, too hot… but I really like the structure of the face.

I liked the drawing when I did it and i LOVE this palette but I don’t like the inked lines.

ria sketch

I liked the size of this one — I feel like I had enough room to be more relaxed about the strokes. And the color palette is great too. I took what I learned from the previous ones and applied it to this one.

 

Filed Under: art journal, color theory, DIY art school, gouache

Color palette study

October 21, 2020 by riasharon

It’s not just Wes Anderson that uses color intentionally. 🙂 I’ve started paying much more attention to color palettes and what the filmmaker is doing. This choosing colors tutorial is helpful—the 60/30/10 rule. Just remembering to limit my palette to just a few colors will be a game changer.

little women screenshot

little women screenshot

little women screenshot

little women screenshot

Filed Under: color theory, DIY art school

Background studies

October 13, 2020 by riasharon

Watched the Art Prof Livestream on backgrounds for portraits. We talked about where to find inspiration for backgrounds and how to be intentional about them.

I also may have just watched Call Me By Your Name five times last weekend…

film still

Alex turned me on to Malcolm Liepke…

Malcolm Liepke paintings

All of which inspired to revisit my earlier portrait study, Quaranteam and do some background studies. What works for me about this portrait is the composition. I love all the angles and just how weird and wacky they are. The dog is practically upside down! I definitely want to preserve that. But I’m not sure I need the specificity of the window or the couch, really.

background study

I like the idea of blocks of color. I even like the sketchy-ness of seeing the pencil marks. I’m excited about the possibilities.

p.s. This video on Wes Anderson style is also helpful/interesting re: color theory. His hand is so over the top but it’s still “in the world” — that’s interesting to me.

Filed Under: color theory, DIY art school, portrait

Secondary colors

September 8, 2020 by riasharon

Ria Unson Secondary Colors

Secondary Colors (Dr. Oto Kano)

What I learned:

  • Again, I can mix up 66 secondary colors just from the 12-color split primary palette, all pretty bright (as opposed to the neutral range I worked with yesterday).
  • These are roughly 50-50 blend of each primary color so if I wanted to do percentages, I could have 560+ colors!

Filed Under: color theory, DIY art school, watercolor

Color Theory 101

September 7, 2020 by riasharon

Just doing a lesson every day…

Ria Unson Complementary Palette

From Dr. Oto Kano’s tutorials on YouTube

What I learned:

  • the range of neutrals I can create with just the 12 colors in my split primary palette
  • I don’t actually have the “correct” complementaries since none of them actually cancel out to absolutely neutral gray but  I don’t care about that as much as knowing what I have available
  • when rendering shadows, I can select and mix up the perfect shade from this reference palette

Filed Under: color theory, DIY art school, watercolor

Back to school

September 5, 2020 by riasharon

It’s been a minute.

I’ve continued with my daily at practice, although a lot hasn’t happened in a sketchbook. I designed a garden, renovated a house, learned how to bake sourdough (like the rest of North America). My house is in a constant state of being painted. Finally, I got the itch to get back to making personal art. And when I did, I found myself butting up against my abilities.

What does that mean? For a long, long time I felt at a loss for subject matter — what I wanted to address or focus on through my art. Finally, I have a lot to “say” but can’t capture it the way I want because I don’t have enough mastery of my tools. So I’m putting myself through DIY art school.

I’ve been painting forever but mostly in oils. In actual art school, I focused on printmaking. But for many reasons, watercolor feels like the best medium for me right now. Problem is, I’ve taking exactly ONE watercolor workshop in my whole life.

It’s fun being a beginner. Anything is possible! It’s that whole new-backpack-fresh-new-notebook-back-to-school feeling. 🙂 I’m just going to post here along the way, (really) to document this journey for myself. I could keep an actual notebook but I’m “traveling light” these days.

Ria Unson palette

12-color split primary palette from the Van Gogh pan set

What I learned:

  • what colors I have ready-to-go, along with their specifications (gradients, transparency, granulation, etc.)
  • the essential 12-color palette

 

Filed Under: color theory, DIY art school, watercolor

A little about me

I have an undergraduate degree in art. By day, I work in higher ed and in my free time I'm currently putting myself through DIY grad school.

I teach classes on creativity and inspiration on Skillshare. I occasionally share my original paintings on Etsy and fine art prints on Minted. I've also been known to make puppy portraits.

Sign up for updates!

We respect your email privacy

 

Shop now: wall art on Minted.

Categories

48dayscreative an artist's sketch artist's date art journal art prints classes collaboration color theory craft design DIY art school Documentation drawings etsy events floral paintings free printables gouache greeting cards illustration Illustration Friday kid art learning hand lettering portrait process products scroll-free year shows The Artist's Way tribe Uncategorized watercolor
dog birthday parties

Archives

Copyright © 2023 · Blossom theme by Restored 316

Copyright © 2023 · Blossom Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in