These are a series of color mixing exercises. The first batch were done on Strathmore 300 paper. Second batch on Arches pad paper.

This first group was done mainly with Ultramarine blue with a different paint in each trio. Each one was done with only 3 primaries. No reference.

This second batch the blue I used was Cerulean. The blue is not very strong, so making darks took a lot of mixing. Different yellow or red in each batch. I’ll have to find my notes to list them. This time I DID use a photo reference, and the result is so much better. I got tired of painting trees by the last one, and liked the paint bloom trees so much, I left out the big tree. Heh.

Each batch of these exercises were done over the course of 1 day. 4 sketches a day, one weekend apart. It sort of amazed me how fast you can improve if you just sit down and paint…