Tints, Tones and Shades in Acrylics

 In this article, Seattle-based artist Ari Glass will help you figure out how to mix the right colors from your paints. Tints, tones, and shades are variations of the hues found on the basic color wheel when white, black or both are mixed in. To help you get a better grasp, Ari Glass will explain these color concepts, and will also help you to understand why even complementary or analogous colors, schemes based on the color wheel, sometimes don’t match.

 

Explore the tonal range

Each color has a tonal range of tints, hues, and shades: a scale of brightness, from lightest to darkest. You should use tonal color for everything from the strongest lights to the darkest shadows. This way you will mimic the behavior of light on a certain object or space and create a three-dimensional effect with its depth.

1.       Tints: Tints are created by adding white to the colors. With this, you will be able to soften the shine of the acrylics and create different pastel tones, depending on the amount of white you use.

2.       Tones: You will get different tones by adding gray or a mixture of black and white to the colors. As you adjust the amounts of black and white in the mix, you will get different, more complex variants, explains Ari Glass.

3.       Shadows: You will get shadows when you add black to the colors. Contemporary artist Ari Glass recommends using black just a little, because it is a very dominant color and might end up completely overtaking the color of the shadow.

Let’s Practice

You can paint a painting in which each color is mixed with gray or black to create tonal effects of light and shadow. A photograph with harsh lighting as a reference image will give you plenty of contrast to experiment with. Choose the theme you want. To know if you are doing it correctly, photograph the finished color painting in black and white. This way you can see if the tonal range you have used is correct.

Shadows: Apply areas of deep blue to the background and the rest of the shadows. The attractive contrast of dark with powerful lights will define the shapes. For foreground shadows you can introduce softer tones with blends of blue and gray.

Tints: Add lots of light yellow tints to evoke a feeling of light. Use red and blue in between yellow to add interest. The tonal difference between tints and shades produces great contrasts and creates outstanding light effects.

Tones: Ari Glass suggests using subtle gradients of blue, yellow, and red. Use darker shades near the shadows and lighter shades that blend in with the inks on top. Experiment first on a palette, adjust the ratio of black to white in gray mixes to create different shades.

Secondary color mixing: Links primary colors by mixing secondary color tints, tones, or shades. Expand the range of red inks by adding blue to red to create pastel purples; or add a touch of red to blue-gray mixes for a greenish hue.

 

Symbolism Art Movement

 

Symbolism was one of the most important artistic movements of the 19th century. Born in France in 1886, it made use of symbols (related to the abstract) to represent emotions and a boundless imagination.

The symbolism stood out for its poetic content with an inner search for universal truths such as spirituality, imagination and dreams. In this article, contemporary artist Ari Glass will speak about the importance, the manifesto, works and most important representatives of this movement.

With an emphasis on spirituality and the subconscious, Ari Glass' paintings draw on a sense of emotionality and the viewer’s individual connection with the work. The influence on the Symbolism movement ties Ari Glass to a number of modern masters and contemporary artists, who have taken his meditations in an exciting new direction.

Beginnings of symbolism

Symbolism was a late 19th century movement whose artists communicated ideas through symbols rather than representing reality. It was created as a reaction to art movements that represented the natural world realistically: Impressionism, Realism, and Naturalism.

Symbolism emerged and was codified in the work of artists like Gustave Moreau and Jean Moréas, who first used the term "symbolism" in 1886. This movement chronologically followed Impressionism, being the antithesis of it since it paid special attention to the meaning behind the shapes and colors.

Symbolism in the visual arts had its origins in the early 1800s, with a romantic emphasis on imagination, rather than reason. For the conventional symbolists the inner life was more important than the outer reality.

Principles of symbolism

The Symbolists sought to escape from reality, expressing their dreams and personal visions through color, form, and composition. They had an almost universal preference for broad strokes of unmodulated color and flat shapes.

In the development of symbolism, the idea of ​​the spiritual was very important and reflected the anti-materialist philosophies related to mysticism. An interest in the occult was related to this concept, as were representations of the morbid and the perverse.

Symbolist painting and emotions

Although symbolism began as a literary concept, it was soon identified with the artwork of a generation of young painters who rejected the conventions of naturalism.

The Symbolist works of art were created mostly with unmodulated colors, broad brush strokes, and flat, abstract shapes. The Symbolists were a varied group with different styles and artistic techniques. However, all stressed the importance of imagination and emotions over realism and rationalism.

In painting, symbolism represented a synthesis of form and feeling, of reality and the artist's internal subjectivity. Inspired by psychoanalysis, the symbolists often portrayed the inner life of the subjects.

In the artworks of Ari Glass, a large part of the symbolism comes from his understanding of art as a language which communicates through color, lines and forms. 

The History of Acrylic Paint?

Have you just started painting with acrylic paint and you want to learn more about this paint?

Here, Ari Glass, a painter and artist explains what acrylic paint is and where it comes from?

Acrylic paint is a very recent painting technique.