Mary Gilkerson Colour creates the Light. Dont get stuck on the physical colour of the object Focus on your perception of the colour instead...... We need to interpret what our eyes see - Optical colour and adding white or black to change the colour. In general dont use white/black to lighten/darken. To lighten a colour use an equally intense but lighter value colour Dont get stuck with the physical colour ie local colour - OPTICAL colour = the perception of what our eyes see Light on an apple = Yellow orange not add white. Late evening light is orange Warm light When painting you have to exaggerate the contrast. The brick is red but orange when the sun lights it. In the shadows - you have the absence of the colour of the light - the complement VIOLET In autumn lots of violet in the shadows For the Orange she mixed red and yellow For the shadow she used Cool red + ...