Colour Doesn't Matter: the painter's paradox

A practical colour theory course with June Harman AFCA

Today we are flooded with hundreds of alluring, exciting new colours that painters in previous eras could only dream about. With this abundance comes the paralyzing stress of too much choice. The paradox is that colour is the least important quality of the paint you use and if you are focusing on colour, your painting experience can become frustrating and stressful.

In my 3-class course you'll do a series of painting exercises and learn a process that will equip you to make good colour decisions as well as the daring and unexpected colour choices that can elevate your work. You will learn to assess the more important qualities of value, saturation, and temperature before finally making the colour choice. If you have studied other colour theory systems, you will find this process augments what you already know. Colour is a slippery character—the more angles of approach you have, the better. Included in this course is an exploration of colour psychology and communication.

This course is based on acrylics for the technical range they allow. (A future course will accommodate oils.) You will use the paints you already have. I will supply supports for the exercises.

Please contact me if you have questions.