Last issue to take a look at is it's too dull. And here is a good example of that painting that I have in process. And when I look at it, I think it's to doll. Often when we're analyzing our paintings, it's not just one issue that comes up, but several at the same time. For instance, I could just as easily look at this and say, it's too dark. Or I could say it's too flat.

It doesn't have much illusion or depth of space. It's also kind of boring. So what we could do is when when you have several issues together, what I like to do is look at each one of those adjectives or issues and find the opposite of those. That's where my solution is going to be. For instance, it's to doll the opposite of doll would be bright. It's too dark.

The opposite of dark is light. So now I know I need brights and lights in there. The opposite of flat would be something with depth. And as soon as we have our pair of opposites, bright and dull, dark and light, we create depth of space. And it's too boring. Well, why don't we just put some shapes and forms in there while I'm putting in the lights, and the brights could even throw some hard edges in there because it's too soft edge too blurred.

So sometimes I'll just sit down with a pad and pencil and I'll write all the adjectives that describe the piece. And right next to it, I'll put all the adjectives that are the opposite. I'll take all those opposites and I'll say all right, is my palette set up for that and let's put it in there. Okay, so I am going to put lights and brights and some extra and in some extra shapes. And the best way to do that since this is already pretty dark and dull. If I take any bright color, like this orange or this red and I put it right on this piece, it's going to soak into this cup.

Painting and get some of that gray and dark in it it's going to dark and right away and dull again. So sometimes when we have a piece I call it the black hole. If it's too dull, we keep trying to add brights and lights and just sucks it in and get makes everything dull and it feels like we can't ever get out of that dark hole. So here's what I like to do a big jolt. I like to take white and kind of do a whiteout in places where I want to put those lights and brights and in this case, I'm going to use the fast drying acrylic the regular acrylic as opposed to the open or slow drying acrylic that I have on this palette. What I want to do is two layers.

I'm going to take this faster drying acrylic in a titanium white and I'll use this to paint wherever I want the lights and brights. Then I'm going to blow dry it fast dry. These paints here do not blow dry fast. I would have to wait till tomorrow to paint on top of them. But I want this white to dry completely. Then I can place the lights and bright colors.

On top and they'll be really crisp and clean. So I'll take my brush, take a couple brushes here. And I'm going to start with taking this white and just wherever I want some lights and brights and these are going to be my eye gems. So I'm not going to stick them in the corners or dead center. I'm just trying to put them in some places that might draw some interest. And I think I'll put a little, just a little shape in here.

And I think I'll put something right about here. And maybe right here I'll change brushes and have the same line and brushstroke whoops big glob of paint there. So no strategy other than well These are like placing AI gems replacing like a treasure map, you're placing treasure in places where people can move their eyes to. Okay, that's a pretty good start. I'll put something coming from up here. Right and this is the regular acrylic so it dries pretty quick and if I blow dry it for about 10 seconds it'll dry completely.

Alright, now, I'm going to vary each one and put a bright color on them and you'll see how the bright color will stay it'll maintain its intensity and brightness over this white. So let's try a yellow. Here's the light yellow. Oops, wanted kind of a greenish yellow Let me try this. Now if I take this green in yellow and put it over this white here, look at how nice and bright that is. And I just want to show you the difference if I take this same color and I put it over here, look at the difference it doesn't this one glows and this one is starting to mute and as it dries it's going to get darker and darker really does help having that white underneath.

Wipe that off. And let's try an orange. Hope to put the orange right on top of it. And again that same orange if I did it without the white underneath, it would start to get duller and duller as it dried. And I'm gonna go a little bit darker orange. So already I'm starting to add some AI gems.

Love that term but sounds kind of funny. But you can see that bright colors are separating from the dull colors and creating a sense of space. Now I have hard edges with soft, have a little bit of interest. I've got brights and dolls and I've got lights and darks. Let's add a few darks. Let's see marks they're there.

Now I'm gonna make this green. See it's just lovely to have that white already there as a setup for applying my brights and basically I'm just going to pick different bright colors, put them on and play with it and I do have a finished version of And here it is. And you could see that there's a lot more visual interest, more space, the lights and the darks, the brights and the dolls, it's warms and cools. We've got things coming in in an entry. We've got design, we've got spatial depth, and so the use of opposites it's a great way to solve problems. And in this case, we use the set of opposites of dull and bright