Scratchboard Tests & Atmospheric Color

Ok, I will admit it, I feel like I really don't know anything about art these days, the more you see, read and do, the less you feel like you have control over.  There are just so many things to try while you try to define what you are and want to say.  You either try them, or you don't and then wonder.  So I feel like a newbie here. 
Many of you have probably done scratch art over the years.  There are some folks that are doing some beautiful things with the medium.  It is not just black and white any more, but color can be added with inks, markers and color pencil.  I kind of think this is just an extension of my fascination with pen/ink drawing work.  So I thought I'd dabble a bit. 
I have a large board, but wanted to practice on something smaller - well so few people do this medium, the art store that is closest doesn't carry anything other than kiddie paper kits as it didn't sell, so only way to get something smaller is to mail order and then wait. 
Remembering patience it not one of my virtues, I am going to go forward and use the bigger board and take my chances.  These are two tests I tried to see if I could make some practice scratch board.  The first is white gesso under a coating of brown india ink and the second is oil pastels painted in at random and covered with black gesso.  The first, india ink didn't come off smoothly at all and the second with the black gesso came off way too easily.  So that is why I am going to try the real thing.  Also, I am kind of giving up and am going to move to this experiment because yesterday I tried to get a couple of projects I had in mind moving, but with no luck, only wasted time - so my unconscious mind must be fixated on trying this.
                                           ATMOSPHERIC COLOR AFFECTS
This little gem is one of the things I didn't do really well in my Grand Canyon painting - remembering that color changes as you recede from foreground to background.  Remember too that local colors start warm and then cool as the time of the day moves to evening.  But colors also cool and dull as you go from from front to back of a picture.   That, along with linear perspective, is what helps to give depth and dimension to your painting.  The particles in the air are what causes this color change, as our eyes see through the haze.  
Going back to greens, foreground is a warm yellow-green, middle ground changes to cooler orange-greens and red-greens, then blue-greens mid background and eventually in the background to cool grays.  For best effect you need to modify your local colors again as you progress through every zone of the picture plane. Taking green for example, modify the zones you arbitrarily draw in your picture, color using the following color suggestions as you step back each zone into the back of the picture:
Lemon Yellow - this is the foreground closest to the viewer (here I use Cadmium Yellow Light)
Cadium Yellow Medium
Cadium Yellow Deep
Cadmium Yellow Medium Yellow + Grumbacher Red
Grumbacher Red
Quiacridone Red (here I use Alizarin Crimson)
Quiacridone Red + Ultramarine Blue
Ultramarine Blue
Gray  
                                                                                               
Ok, yellows, because they are warm and vibrant cause the area to advance
Blue in the background, it is cool and helps things recede into the distance

These are the general tenets, there is more to the story that will come next time.  Thanks for stopping by and hope you are having a great painting week.

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