Wet-on-wet colours fade away, not bright enough...

[PConstantino]

Hello all, this is my first time here and I'd like to wish you a good new year.

Sorry about the other two posts, it was the only way I could insert links in this post.


I have been watching Bob Ross' joy of painting, and I've been painting for about one week now.

My problem is :

when I try to copy his paintings, my colours are not bright enough, everything is almost the same coluors, and when I try to highlight trees for example, my highlights don't even show...I've tried paint thinner but I still don't get his results... these are some of my paintings:

http://a1.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/395164_2970709867674_1259554232_33304629_847880106 _n.jpg

And:

http://a1.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/379059_2969867526616_1259554232_33304179_129712459 4_n.jpg




As you can see, the highlights are really dull, they don't show, when I try to highlight, the dark colours underneath just eat all the colour...


I am using burnt umber for the darks, lemon yellow and sap green for highlights, is this the cause?

Thank you

Paulo

[Patrick1]

Welcome aboard. For the highlights to stand out properly in the Bob Ross method, a few thoughts:

-first make sure the base color is dark enough or the highlight light enough
-the highlight color might need to be thinned down a little bit with thinner first (but not too much)...it should be a little softer than the color underneath
-use a lot of the highlight color...really load up the brush and re-load the highlight brush often as you go rather than trying to force the remaining paint out of the brush
-for the cleanest & brightest highlights, make sure the brush is clean - if it has picked up too much of the color underneath, rinse that 'mud' out before continuing

[Aires]

Another thought about the Bob Ross wet-on-wet method..... if you are using liquid white, it needs to be a very thin coat or the white will indeed lighten your colors. The liquid clear also needs to be thin it but does not lighten the colors as does the white. As stated above, highlights need to be made with slightly thinner paint on top of thicker paint and perhaps brighter? Bob made it look so easy a pre-schooler could do it but it does take practice to get the techniques down. Good luck, you are doing well.

[wetbob]

first you ve done a beautiful painting! You re very talented!

my colours are not bright enough, everything is almost the same coluors, and when I try to highlight trees for example, my highlights don't even show...

I think your base is too wet, your next layer wont stick, wait a little time (1 hour?) and it becomes dryer and you can add highlights

remember:

colours in front are the brightest and darkest, farest away they become lighter and cooler (just more blue in it), taking this into account, the 3 large green evergreen trees look to have the same distance.
if you ll make the foreground a tiny bit darker and brighter in colour, you ve solved your problem and you ll get more 3D

-the door must be a bit lighter

- dont let your lake end up in the corner, but about 1/3 of the canvas,

wb

[Duane67]

I like the comments. They should help you allot. here's one I'm working on now.

[querin]

I have his many DVd's also a think avery light touch when placing the highlights as to not pic up the paint underneath.
querin

[blissofsilver]

For some reason your first link isn't working for me D: