So now that my palette set up, let's talk about variety a little bit more, because it is so important, I think, and I emphasize it a lot in in the book as I mentioned. So let's just think of as an example, let's start with the simple idea of a red line. Now, if we were painting a red line in an abstract painting, we would want it to be a little more interesting than just a plain old red line. And if we were painting a realistic painting, a red line could still play a part, we might have somebody red ribbon in their hair. So let's just look at the idea of a red line. And I'll start with red paint.

This is a cadmium red. And if I did not have this whole palette that I set up, just wanted to paint a red line, I might actually think, hey, why bother with all these colors? I might We'll just start with red, all I want is a red line. So let's pretend All I have is this red. And here is my red line all add a little curve to it. And there's our red line.

And it's okay, it has a little curve to it. But, you know, in an abstract painting, or if this was a red ribbon on hair, it wouldn't look realistic as a red ribbon. And it would look pretty boring in an abstract painting. Let me show you how different a simple red light can look once we vary it. And also want to show you how much more work is involved in making something varied. So we have this palette set up and to vary a red line.

I'm going to take this red, and I'm going to make five more variations of it. Whoops. I'm using this slow drying, open acrylic and everything that I demonstrate here. could also be substituted by oil paint or watercolor, or the fast drying acrylic. But I wanted to mention that I'm using the slow drying acrylic so that it lasts for the whole video shoot. Here we go.

Now what are the ways we can vary a color? Well, there are six ways a color can vary. It can be lighter or darker. It can be warmer or cooler. And it can be brighter or dollar. And so with this red if I want to make it lighter, I'll just add white.

And what I want to do is I want to create what I call a family of colors. I want everything to look like it relates like they have the same parents. And so if I add too much white, like something like hero over here, it's not going to look like it relates to this red. So I'm going to add white but just that To make it look different than this read, but yet still look like it's related. So this looks like to me a light version of this. And can you see how if I call this my light version, it would be a huge jump.

So I'm looking for small jumps, but enough jump to make a visual difference. Now the next category, the next variation we can do on the red is dark, we have light and dark. I'm just going to add some black and I don't want to just add black and just leave it there. I want to really look at this relationship. Do these feel like they're in the same family this red with a darker and lighter version of it, and if I go too dark and add too much black, it might be too much of a big visual jump and not look believable. So now I've got light and dark now I'm going to go warm and cool with red.

That means we go look at our three primary colors red, yellow, and blue. If I want the red to get warmer, I'm going to add a little more yellow. And I want this red to be cooler. So I'm going to add a little more blue. So I'll go to my yellow. And again, I'm not just going to trust how much yellow I added I'm going to mix it up really well and then look at it and see sometimes I need to add more because looks the same as the red.

That looks pretty close. So I'm going to add a little bit more. that's starting to look a little different. It looks like a warmer version of that red. Okay, and now cooler. Well, this red is a warm red already.

So I'm going to go for my Remember I said on my palette, I have a warm and a cool choice of red. So I'm just going to go to the cool choice of red and mixed the two reds together. Well, still looks pretty much the same. I think what I'll do is add a little bit of a cool blue which would be this blue ultramarine blue. Well, that cooled it down, but it also made it a little bit muddy. That's okay, it still looks like it's a variation of this red lips.

Notice I'm wiping my palette knife off after each mixture because otherwise I would end up with the same mixture if I used a palette knife with all the same colors on it. I've got one more left now this the other pair that we didn't do yet was bright and dull. And this red is already pretty bright right out of the tube. So to doll it, I'm going to add its complement. And the way we determine a colors compliment is to go back to those three primary colors red Blue and yellow, and say, Well, if this is red, what's missing out of those three, that would be the blue and the yellow. And if we combine blue and yellow, we get green.

So green is the complement of red. So if I add a little bit of green to it, it should cut when two complements are mixed together, they turn brown. And let's see, is that visually different enough from this red I think I'll add a little bit more. Okay. Now I have a family of reds. Or I could say I have made a lot of variations of the same red.

Now I'll paint a line and instead of loading my brush up and just unloading it into the whole line, I am going to only go a little short way, wipe the color off of my brush, dip it into something else, extend that. And then change brushes to a different color, change the way I'm holding it changed the way I'm applying it and keep dipping back into other colors. Now I have a line. It may not look like a ribbon. I wasn't concentrating on the idea of a ribbon, but it was concentrating on the idea of showing you how instead of one fluid motion of a red line, you can start and stop and keep changing your how you hold it. Change your brush, change your color, and I can even go back in now.

And if I wanted to make it into a ribbon, I could go back In and I could start to soften the edges between the color shifts. even add some water and let some of it bleed a little bit. I can even take some paper towel. Try softening an edge this way. And now if you look at this, the difference between the two lines, your eye probably goes more towards something that's varied than something that's very uniform. And so by having a complete, enhanced full palette, and also allowing yourself to slow down enough to concentrate on varying, you're going to put that in your painting and like I said, make the painting a lot more visually interesting.