This week's challenge is to replace tone with colour.
Find a black and white photograph that has lots of contrast (deep blacks, lots of mid tones and white) and then I want you to replace the black, grey and white image with colour as if you were painting from a colour photograph. If you wish you can reverse this process, i.e. start with a colour photograph and make a tonal representation of it in black, grey and white.
Either way you wish to tackle this challenge it will help you immensely to understand both tone and colour. It will help you mix shades, tones and tints of colour (remember a SHADE is created by adding black paint, a TONE grey paint and a TINT white paint to your colour) as well as help you to compare the two.
For example, a dark area on your photograph (black or near black) could be portrayed as a dark blue, a dark brown or a dark green. A mid tone grey could be portrayed as a mid green for example. A light area could be portrayed as a yellow or a very light tint of yellow/off white.
Your colour palette can be naturalistic in colour or not. The choice is yours. It could even be all one colour (monochrome) for instance dark red through to mid red to light reds and tints of red or all blue or green etc. To sum up it is a task of matching a specific tone to a colour which has the same tonal value. Dark, mid or light
I look forward to seeing your paintings!
Happy painting & keep safe
Lee Papworth 🎨
(Images the property of Lee Papworth 2020)
