In Depth Study of Ray Harris Ching - Unedited Timelapse (Patreon)

Most of my master studies I do in one shot, but there’s a lot of paintings that are either too intimidating to paint in this way or I feel I won’t learn the most I can.

I’m developing a system to break down complex paintings so I can focus on one skill at a time without getting overwhelmed.

First I color match the largest and most important areas of color, swatching them over the original to see if my guess is close, then plotting it on a color wheel when I’m satisfied. On the wheel, I’m plotting hue (placement around the circumference) and saturation (how close it is to the center, or grey).

I matched many of the swatches so well that I lost them! That’s why I outlined them, and numbered some that I thought were interesting or would forget their placement on the color wheel. I also noted if the same color appeared in more than one place, especially if color theory tricked me into thinking it was two different colors.

Then I did a rough sketch, and a 4 value study. This is what a struggle with the most! In my own paintings the composition and value planning is weak so hopefully isolating this topic over many studies will help me improve.

I duplicated the sketch and did my usual color study.

I also want to get better at painting detail, so I picked out one small area to build up the detail as close to the original as I could.