Class Description
Color In Practice: Making the Colors that Fit YOU!
Instructor: Jane Davies
6 Lessons
Class Dates: September 16-26, 2025
In this new class, I will take you beyond basic color theory and into an exploration of how to actually USE color to strengthen your art. We will work with value, hue, tone… all the necessary aspects of mixing colors but in a way that is personal and fun. I’ll show you how to modify colors and put them into RELATIONSHIPS that serve your images.
You’ll come away with a deeper understanding of color, the skills to expand your palette and strengthen your paintings, and we’ll put it all into practice by making some finished collage paintings together.
I hope you will join me!
Jane
Some of Jane’s Abstract Artwork:
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Class Itinerary
Lessons are prerecorded and are available at 1am PT on the following schedule; after that, you will have instant and forever access:
Lesson 1 – Tuesday, September 16
Lesson 2 – Wednesday, September 17
Lesson 3 – Friday, September 19
Lesson 4 – Tuesday, September 23
Lesson 5 – Wednesday, September 24
Lesson 6 – Friday, September 26
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Week 1: Color Mixing
Lesson 1: Hue
In this lesson we’ll start with the basics: creating a 12-color color wheel from red, blue, and yellow. The goal here is to notice how specific pigments work in mixing these basic colors.
Lesson 2: Value
We start by creating a value scale in grays. Then we’ll try mixing color to match specific values. (Warning: this is hard, but it’s great practice!)
Lesson 3: Neutrals & Muted Colors
Learn to mix a beautiful variety of neutrals—grays, browns, beige, taupe, sand, etc.—and how to turn the volume down on bright colors, making them into sophisticated muted tones.
Week 2: Putting Color in Practice; Three Projects
Lesson 4: Collage Color Pie Graphs
From the collage papers you have painted in previous lessons, we will create a pie-graph collage. The format is simple, but the challenge is in making each color different from all of the others.
Lesson 5: Color Field Paintings
We’re not trying to be Rothko here, just be yourself, but learn how to give a relatively large area of a single color depth and interest. This is a great way to explore color for its own sake, to treat color as the subject of a painting.
Lesson 5: Complementary Colors Paintings
We all know that complementary colors—red/green, blue/orange, purple/yellow—clash or make each other vibrate. Learn to use them in more subtle ways as well in this collage-painting project.
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For a full list of the supplies you will need, see the tab titled “Supplies” located just under the video screen above.
