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Old 05-07-2007, 09:17 AM   #6
Alexandra Tyng Alexandra Tyng is offline
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Jayden,

Cadmiums are very hard to control and this is why a lot of artists stay away from them, preferring less intense colors of the same hues. I use them because they seem well balanced against blues and violets, but there are other possible choices that might work better for you.

Actually, I suggested cad yellow deep rather than cad yellow...try it in a color mixing test and see if it is not an improvement. The reason cad yellow deep works with ultramarine blue is that it is closer to a complement, but will still give you a convincing warmer shadow for yellow green if you mix the correct proportion of the two colors. If warm and cool are exactly balanced, you will get a nice yellowish grey that can go from very dark to light depending on your use (or lack of use) of white. With slightly more cad yellow deep, it warms up, and with slightly more blue, it cools down. You may not even need brown, but if you do use it I would suggest umber or something not too orangey. The part of the shadow closest to the robe will pick up some red from the robe, so that could be worked in. Again if you prefer not using cads, you can probably find other colors to substitute, but W&N cad yellow deep might be harder to match.

Now for the robe. The folds in shadow can be modeled by mixing the same blue+orangey-yellow (without white) to make a dark grey, then mixing that with the red robe color. If all the shadows are consistent, the painting will hold together and you can get nice soft edge transitions in the shadows because you are using the same combinations of colors with variations in the mixtures.

I know it can be very frustrating to mix these strong colors so this may not work for you. The main goal is consistency in color. The last thing I would want is to suggest something that resulted in you messing up this wonderful painting!
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