Oil Question

[theseeker]

I am starting a Chasseur which requires a large amount of Red. I am using a mixture W&N bright red and deep red cadium.
The question; What is the best color for highlighting and shading? I was thinking of using orange for the highlights and brown madder for shading.
Opinions please.

 

[Sambaman]

Good start Rocky. I use raw umber for my shadows, mixed with my base red, I like cad orange for highlights, again mixed with my base red (usualy cad red). HTH,

Jay H.
OKC

 

[theseeker]

Good start Rocky. I use raw umber for my shadows, mixed with my base red, I like cad orange for highlights, again mixed with my base red (usualy cad red). HTH,

Jay H.
OKC

Thanks Jay! What do you use for Napoleonic Green? I found Courbet Green which looks pretty close to Andreas Napoleonic Green.

Rocky

 

[Sambaman]

Well to be honest Rocky, the only green I have in my palette is Sap Green. I'm a "mixer" from way back, so what I usually do is mix in some paynes gray, for a deeper, bluer green, or I go for the yellow ochre for a slightly brighter, lighter green. If I need a good OD green, a touch of cad red usually does the trick. HTH,

Jay H.
OKC

 

[Einion]

I am starting a Chasseur which requires a large amount of Red. I am using a mixture W&N bright red and deep red cadium.
The question; What is the best color for highlighting and shading?

What do you have?

And what 'look' do you want?

There are multiple ways that people use for highlighting and shading any starting paint and it's largely a matter of taste - rather than right/wrong - which one to use. For some reds just white can work okay, although often using yellow as well works better for reds. Same deal with greens and orange.

For crimson and reds more toward violet just white is usually better (although sometimes the tints are too vivid so you need to dull them down a bit for realism).

The halftones on red (the medium shadows) should still be the same red in hue. Ditto with the darkest shadows, although they're often dark enough that you can't tell if they're a bit off. The commonest painter's way of achieving a duller version of any starting paint or mix is to blend in some of a mixing complement.

For modelling I think that the halftone colour with added black often makes quite an acceptable deep shadow colour, although you may find it too dull. That's where taste comes into it.

Einion

 

[theseeker]

What do you have?

And what 'look' do you want?

There are multiple ways that people use for highlighting and shading any starting paint and it's largely a matter of taste - rather than right/wrong - which one to use. For some reds just white can work okay, although often using yellow as well works better for reds. Same deal with greens and orange.

For crimson and reds more toward violet just white is usually better (although sometimes the tints are too vivid so you need to dull them down a bit for realism).

The halftones on red (the medium shadows) should still be the same red in hue. Ditto with the darkest shadows, although they're often dark enough that you can't tell if they're a bit off. The commonest painter's way of achieving a duller version of any starting paint or mix is to blend in some of a mixing complement.

For modelling I think that the halftone colour with added black often makes quite an acceptable deep shadow colour, although you may find it too dull. That's where taste comes into it.

Einion

Einion,

Glad you chimed in, I always appreciate your input as I do Jay's.
I am not sure what I want other than an accurate depiction of "Napoleonic Red and Green."
I started with a mix of W&N bright red and cad deep red. I added brown madder to my base color for intermediate shading and applied brown madder directly for darker shadows. All wet on wet.
For highlighting I used bright red for intermediate highlights and cad orange for the extreme highlights. I was afraid to use any white as I didn't want any pinkish shades.
In the case of the green I used deep permanent green for the base and added yellow ochre for highlighting and lamp black for shadows.
Red is definitely a difficult color!
Thanks for the help.
BTW, I have a large palette of oils.