Grays

In high school, all of my art classes spent time focusing on color theory. I find it interesting, however, that of all my teachers, not a single one went into making a series of gray through using complimentary colors and the three primaries. As I sat there mixing furiously in Visual Concepts, frustrated at the task at hand, it suddenly clicked. This was why in all my paintings, when a gray was used they were dull and lifeless.
I had spent all this time considering gray as a mixture of simply white and black and felt frustrate when a painting would come out lacking. Colors are the most complex aspect in art. It’s never a simple matter of one color, as I’ve been realizing. A great work of art requires the artist to be bold. Throw in a hint of a color normally reserved for something else and your piece pops from the canvas.
I had a portraiture teacher once who touched on this. Her approach to painting involved many different layers. You drew, then you painted in a series of greens in acrylic, and then you could move on to oil paints. She also made a point to add in colors you normally wouldn’t expect. Add a bit of blue on the cheek line and nose and suddenly the entire lighting of the portrait changed. It made since, and while it was a pain, the results were worth it in the end.