New Color Monday: Warm Light Yellow

Today's color for "New Color Monday" is Michael Harding's Warm Light Yellow Series 2. I first discovered this amazing color this past spring when I purchased the Modern Master set at an art event where Michael and his team had a booth. (By the way... this is one of the absolute BEST ways to try new colors! Attend an event such as the Portrait Society of America, Oil Painters of America, or the Plein Air Convention, where art suppliers demonstrate and sell their products. I've discovered some of my favorite things this way. Plus you get to meet the people behind the products and they are always incredibly knowledgeable and helpful!)

So anyway, here's my take on Warm Light Yellow. I've shown it here next to Warm White Series 1 (on right) and Genuine Naples Yellow Light Series 6 (on left). All three of these colors are amazing (I'll save the other two for another time), but I've been finding more and more uses for Warm Light Yellow than I thought I would.

In the past, if I desired to get a high-key warm light, I would simply mix a tiny bit of cadmium yellow into titanium white. This is still a lovely combination, but it's not the same as the effect the Warm Light Yellow creates. WLY is quite opaque, and can be used as a quick and beautiful "lightest light" in warm skin tones, without creating the dreaded chalky or pasty look. Like the last color I featured here, I would consider Warm Light Yellow a handy convenience color. Every artist should gain a strong understanding of how to mix primaries and master a limited palette before jumping into the world of convenience colors, but once you are familiar with your palette, it's really nice to have this one lying around. :-)

In my example below on a work in progress, you can see the Warm Light Yellow pretty much straight out of the tube on the model's hip and thigh. The highlight on top of it is warm white. It's just enough of a value difference to create some beautiful subtleties.

I couldn't find a link to purchase my featured color (That just means you'll have to attend one of the events I mentioned :-p), but you can get Genuine Naples Yellow Light by clicking the image below:

New Color Monday: Warm Light Yellow