Ready to know more about San Diego?

Subscribe
Arts & Culture

Class 15. Fundamental Color Control for the Painter with Ron Lemen | Athenaeum School of the Arts | La Jolla Studio (September 13–October 25)

About the Event

Here’s something that might surprise you: color is essentially value in disguise. Color=Value. This idea becomes the crucial bridge when you’re transitioning from drawing to painting, regardless of your medium. It’s not always an immediate connection—color has this seductive quality, especially when it’s rich and saturated, that can completely captivate your attention and make you forget about the underlying structure.



I want to share some practical tools that can help you see through color’s enchanting surface to reveal the values beneath. Most people know about the three fundamental attributes of color: hue, value, and chroma. But there’s actually a fourth player that’s equally important: temperature. Getting the temperature relationships right is often what separates paintings that feel balanced and believable from those that somehow feel “off.”



We’ll dive deep into color fundamentals each week, exploring not just the theory but also the practical side—how paint application affects color, why brushstroke direction matters, how different brush types can affect and mix the colors, and plenty more. The real learning happens through practice, so we’ll be working from still-life arrangements and painting from life models to put these principles to the test.



(If you have the time, I will also be giving you exercises, including building your own color wheels, chroma key exercises, and more, to work on at home.)

This color theory is rooted in the teachings of Sebastian Capella, Ron’s former mentor, whose classical foundation laid the groundwork for a deeper understanding of color’s expressive potential. Over the years, through Ron’s extensive work in the entertainment industry, these principles evolved—shaped by the demands of visual storytelling, where color and spatial relationships carry the weight of unspoken meaning.



Note: You can paint in any medium, but I will be demonstrating in oil, which is the easy to work with and the colors hold true when they dry.



Materials:

Paints: Preferred paints in oil: (buy directly from the DaVinci Paints website) Titanium White, Cadmium Yellow Pale, Cadmium Yellow Orange, Cadmium Red Light, Alizarin Crimson, Red Rose Deep, Ultramarine Blue, Cerulean Blue, Viridian Green, Ivory Black.

Surfaces: Canvas pads at least 11” x 14” in scale; I use 12” x 16” and 16” x 20”, but scale is up to you.

Brushes: Include at least one 1/4” bristle flat; two 1/2” bristle flat; one round, preferably a sable, to draw with; one 1/2” bristle filbert; one 1/2” bristle bright; and one fan brush, preferably a bristle as well. We are not using any sable brushes except to draw with to make sure that our paint application is strong and opaque. This makes it much easier to see the exact color that has been mixed.

Paper Towels: Purchase a four-pack or a box of blue shop towels from Home Depot. They are durable and do not flake into paint the way regular paper towels do.

Other: one palette knife for mixing color, RGM # 5 or 10, flexible, with a rounded end to it to prevent damaging your palette. Palette set up: palette paper (Reynolds Freezer Paper found at any grocer or online); an 18” x 24” canvas board to act as a palette support (can be purchased cheaply at Michael’s); linseed oil and oil cup (no paint thinner is needed).



Max students: 12

NEXT EVENTS

Contact Us

1230 Columbia Street, Suite 800,

San Diego, CA