Color Blind Painting Techniques

Distinction

Hues and Saturation

Enchroma – Color Blind Glasses

Enchroma glasses are great for distinguishing colors under bright light. I wear them when walking or driving in sunlight, to retrain my sense of hue. They have really helped me begin to distinguish greens from browns or blues from purples, even when I take the glasses off.

For actual painting, the glasses are shaded like sunglasses and limited by light source. You can crank up the light at your desk or easel, but it is difficult to ensure contrast and saturation hold up to natural lighting.

Recipes

Miniature Paints

The nice thing about miniature paints is that they are named in ways that can often be intuited. For example, Tuskgore Fur or Storm Vermin Fur are both likely good colors for painting fur.

Army Painter – Flexible Triads

Flexible triads helped give me the confidence. Having 6 specific colors in a range from dark to light grouped as Deep Green-Blues or Cool Reds gave me a description and consistent application.

Vallejo – BSL System

Confidence.

Vallejo – True Metallic Metal

Confidence.

Keeping Track of and Organizing Paint Bottles

Thoughts and Experience

Reference Art and Inspiration

The internet today provides a wealth of tutorials and information. When I was learning to draw and paint, reference art and inspiration was metered by pop culture.

Early on, comics were great for line drawing and the human form. Paper backs introduced me to Frank Frazetta and Boris Vallejo. Roger Dean was all over album covers.

I spent a lot of time in book stores studying printed books featuring artist like Alberto Vargas, Michael Parkes, Maxfield Parrish, Salvador Dalí, Michael Angelo, Rembrandt, and Caravaggio.

I spent hours in Walden Books and later Barnes and Noble studying the images and taking notes.

Early Painting

I had started selling pencils drawings and pen & ink stuff in a local coffee shop. Being color blind was not an issue here.

I didn’t get a chance to start learning about other mediums until I picked and started making good money with an airbrush.

Examples

Here is an example of what messed me up. Studying the Dutch masters, you are encouraged to use blue for undertones and shadows, some version of brown (Browns are my nemesis) and yellow for light and highlights. Using a long blending medium like oil, blending would occasionally mix blue and yellow. My skin tones would go a bit green, but I had no idea. Brown and Green are pretty much the same to my eyes.

Color theory for primaries and CYMK makes sense intellectually, but I tend to need to write down specific ratios to map end colors. I can’t trust my eyes to say, yes, that is the right brown. I use your eyes and feedback while taking notes (Liqutex Ink: 1 drop cyan, 7 drops magenta = purple) (Liqutex Ink: 2 drops cyan, 1 drop magenta = blue). Generally, changing medium, the mixing ratios change, so now I need another recipe for Golden Acrylics.