Triadvent: conclusions and personal learnings

Starting this Triadvent, I only had some mixing fun in mind. But when I started with my paintings, some more goals developed naturally. I already mentioned in my previous blog post that I painted without drawing beforehand. I tried that before on a few paintings, but this Triadvent I wanted to deep dive on this. 

Additional challenges 

I decided to use completely different colors for the painted subject or to not color match the real colors. Using completely different colors is easier, because I don’t try to match the colors. In this case, only the values are important. With my first triad I painted a little book which was yellow. Obviously I didn’t paint it yellow. Getting into the mindset of not being able to color match was harder. But at the end of Triadvent it was easier than at the beginning. And having only a limited palette made that mindset even more reachable. I hope I can keep some of it in my future paintings. 

The second challenge I set myself was using only one brush. I tend to lose myself in tiny details at the end of a painting. It stresses me out, I get really tense by doing it. I tried to break free from this by using only one brush. And it worked. That brush had a good point, but not as pointy as my smaller brushes. Therefore I wasn’t able to paint tiny details. Overall I liked the simplicity of using only one brush. It helped me to let go of my perfection by trying to only suggest details. Here as well I noticed a mindset shift that I really liked.

By painting with a big brush I realized that I want to make intentional and bold brushstrokes to not overwork a painting. That was hard in the beginning. Usually I paint with soft gradients and I try to avoid hard edges between values. After some days into the challenge, I was able to be more mindful of my brushstrokes. I even managed to keep the white on most of my paintings. 

What I learned 

Besides the subtle mindset shifts, there were some other learnings as well. When I chose subjects to paint, I realized again how much I love painting shiny subjects. In Triadvent I learned to exaggerate the highlights by leaving them white and by painting them bigger as on the object itself. 

In addition to the highlights, I also played with the shadows. Before Triadvent I always tried to paint shadows neutral or in a muted purple when painting objects with no background. In Triadvent I decided to experiment with other shadow colors. Sometimes I just chose a random dark color from the triad. But on other occasions I chose dark muted colors that complemented the painted subject nicely. I will be further experimenting with shadow colors in the future. 

Besides the things that I learned because I planned to be on the right track, there are also surprises that came along the way. Sometimes, there are things you understand theoretically. But then you realize that it didn’t click until you experienced it. For me in Triadvent the realization came after I painted the brush. Looking at the triad, I expected something dull and boring. But in such a muted triad the green looked really green. 

And then there was this one thing I learned about myself. My motivation to paint with a triad was to be able to pick a new triad afterwards. The excitement of getting new colors to play with! I always looked forward to the color mixing. It’s really meditative and relaxing for me.

Last but not least, and more a realization than a learning, was that I like to paint bigger now. When I started that sketchbook I felt almost overwhelmed by the size (16×16 cm, 6,3×6,3 inch). Now I feel very comfortable with it. I would have liked it even bigger.

Conclusion 

Such a challenge really helped by pushing my skills. I am really happy that I learned so much. I am even more happy to realize a mindset shift in things I felt stuck before. My experience with this challenge was a 11/10 – it was even better than expected!

In some upcoming blog posts I’ll share my thoughts on the triads I painted with.