Yellow is the lightest and brightest of the colors. Yellow’s lightness and brightness make it a good color for a school bus because, for safety, we want it to catch people’s attention. The same should apply to fire engines, which are traditionally painted red. Red is bright, but it is not light and is no more visible at night than dark gray. But since an artist’s goal is to produce a harmonious painting rather than color an emergency vehicle, he usually tones down the yellow by diluting it, glazing over it, or mixing it with another color.
For example, in his painting “Woman With a Pearl Necklace” Old Master Jan Vermeer (Dutch, 1632-1675) softened the yellow of the woman’s jacket by mixing it with white. If the jacket had been colored a pure, and therefore dominating, yellow, like the yellow of the curtain in the upper left corner of the picture, it would have distracted from the harmony of the closely related, mostly unnamable, colors in the busy, nearby area of the woman’s hair, ribbon, face, and hands.
In contrast, Georges de La Tour (French, 1593 –1652) often lit his subjects with a single candle, which resulted in paintings that were dark with shadow. Here the woman on the left is shielding the candle from view while its light falls on white clothing, which leads us to the detailed features of the Christ child’s little face, where our attention rests.
Painting Candle Light With Water Color
Here is a guided “how-to” to suggest how you could try such an approach: draw something you are interested in on watercolor paper. Prepare a watery mixture of yellow ochre and cadmium yellow. Also have ready whatever other colors you might need. Thoroughly wet your paper. Then add some of the yellow and ochre mixture, spreading it out while using a rag to draw water from your brush when your surface becomes flooded. During this “wet-in-wet” procedure, you can dab in other colors — that of clothing or skin, for example. But this is not a time to be precise. The paint will run in unexpected directions and the colors will blur into each other. Work over broad areas, and prevent pools from forming. These masses of unruly color will, in the end, help unify your composition.
When your “wash,” as it is called, is too dry to be workable, leave it to dry completely. Later, when you resume painting, now on top of the dried yellow mixture, begin by working broadly, maybe covering several areas at once, but quickly so as not to pick up the underlying color. Narrow your focus to details by degrees, and add your darkest darks. Then, working toward lightness, use white, first tinted slightly with yellow, and finally, a small amount in its pure, white state, perhaps on the tip of the nose, the forehead, or cheek. This will give your painting a complete range of dark to light values. Surrounded by warm darks, the features will stand out with a golden glow.