Have you ever come across monochromatic art? If so, you must have been in awe at the beauty of the painting. The unique color palette of the monochromatic art is indeed very intriguing. I’m always on the lookout to find the best monochromatic paintings on Pinterest, trying to brush up on my own skills on the way,
Artists create this mesmerizing artwork by using a single color or tone. However, it uses distinct tones and composition to give depth to the painting. Thus, by limiting a color palette to tones of one shade and tapping into the vast world of color psychology, you will create the painting’s emotion, atmosphere, and mood.
Interesting, right? So, how to create expressive and intriguing monochromic art? It’s pretty EASYY!!
It’s a good idea to start learning from the basics, I’ve created this tutorial to help you out on this beautiful watercolor art journey. Keep reading the article to learn how to create an easy monochrome painting!
Table of Contents
What Is Monochrome Painting?
Numerous art schemes are dominating the art world in the 21st century. One of the most trending and widely used art schemes is monochromatic art. But what is monochrome painting?
Monochromatic means using a color based on a single hue or color. The monochromatic color scheme is pretty easy to understand. It is widely used in various art mediums, such as painting, drawing, digital art, portraits, interior design, and more. Today, they have become an integral part of contemporary art in the modern world.
This art style expresses the atmosphere, tone, emotion, dimensions, and mood through a single color or shades of the same hue.
Creating monochrome painting has many benefits, such as:
- When you create monochrome painting, you will learn about tonal values and color theory. You can use a wide range of shades from light and dark tones. It helps you learn how to create color contrast.
- You will understand light and shadow, which will help you create depth and dimensions in your art.
- While using a range of tonal values, you can explore the various artistic spectrums of your chosen color.
Create A Value Scale For The Watercolor You Are Using
Monochrome painting is created by using different tonal values. Therefore, it is essential to learn the technique to create a value scale for the color you will use. This technique will help you understand the range of tones-starting from light to dark tones of your selected color.
To understand the value scale, you need to create a gradient. You can achieve this by following these steps.
Step 1: Take a rectangular piece of paper and divide it into six sections.
Step 2: Take a pigment of your color. Then add water and dilute it until it is of a very light hue and almost pale.
Step 3: By using a brush, do a clean and even apply horizontally from the second section of your page. Leave the first section white.
Step 4: Allow the paper to dry.
Step 5: Add more pigment and paint the second layer from the paper’s third section.
Step 6: Again, leave the paper to dry.
Step 7: Repeat the process and fill all the layers in the rectangular sheet. You will find that each shade gets darker as you move across the layers.
You can use this color gradient as a reference to guide you while creating your monochrome art. This will help you determine whether you should add more water or pigment to get the desired hue or tint of the selected color.
Check out this video to learn more:
Materials needed
You can create easy monochromatic art with the supplies you use for your regular painting or you can even use your kid’s montessori art supplies. But there is a difference. We are only going to use one hue from the basic color wheel.
The recommended supplies include:
- Pencils
- An image for reference
- Transfer or trace paper
- One Color of your choice
- White paint
- Palette knife
- Brushes
- Any painting surface
If you are a novice to the painting world, you can check out the materials you will need before you start!
Tutorial to Create Easy Beginner Monochromatic Painting
You may follow this process step-by-step to create a monochrome painting with ease and precision.
Step 1: Choose the Color
It’s important to understand that the first step to creating monochrome art is choosing the color you want to use for the painting process. Then, mix up with controlling water to create a gradient. For example, if you’re using watercolor, you can create a gradient of color variations by mixing it with water, as discussed above.
For other paints, you can mix pure white with a bit of white color. However, for this application, you need to:
- Leave the pure color in the number five.
- Add a little white color in the succeeding portions to create a gradient flow.
- Make sure that each of the colors differs from the others. But at the same time, each tone should form a harmony.
You can look into this YouTube video tutorial to learn to create color gradients.
It will be challenging to create the exact hue again, so store the color. You can put them on top of a plastic sheet or plastic container like a film canister to prevent drying out.
Step 2: Select an Image for reference
Use a simple image with enough contrast as a reference image. You can start practicing by painting a moon, layer of mountains, or landscape. To ensure that the image has a good amount of contrast, turn the image into black and white digitally.
If you’re using mountains as a reference, you can just turn the image into black and white, so it’s a great idea to paint this picture which has distinct contrasts, and deeper lighter or darker hues. It’s much easier to start practicing by using colors to paint the background that’s the sky. So the foreground of the mountains stand out giving a realistic compositional vibe. If you can distinguish different tones clearly, they have good contrasts. But if the image looks similarly grey, you must choose another image.
You can check this out if you want to convert color images into back and white easily!
Step 3: Print your reference image
Print the reference image in the desired size you would like to create your artwork.
Step 4: Trace the image
Use a tracing or transfer paper to copy the image to the desired surface you are going to work. However, the tracing is done a bit differently.
- You will have to trace the different tones in the image as shapes.
- Number each tint from 1 to 5 to understand the tone.
- To understand it better, you can mark light as 1 to 5 being dark.
Step 5: Paint according to the number assigned
You will have to paint each portion based on the number (number indicates the tint) you have assigned while referring to the image of the reference.
Step 6: Add details
Once you have painted the image with watercolors on the number, you can add details per your idea. You can make various brush strokes, and the color can vary from the lightest of hues or the darkest of tints.
Tap on to the creative and complex world of monochrome!
When you have only one color with you, you might feel that your creativity is challenged. Indeed, creating an image with precise dimensions and emotion with a single hue is difficult. So, learn how to create unlimited colors from a limited color palate and explore its unique tones, hues, and tints.You will be able to paint in no time! So, set up your unique monochromatic color palate and create easy monochromatic art.
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