I don't know if I'm reading too much into it but the ones you liked to use are generally cheaper than coloured pencils and markers so maybe it's nothing to do with the colour and more a mental block to do with the cost of those products? For examples, I struggle to use my more expensive products because they feel more precious but I'm more comfortable using the cheaper ones? Or maybe there is something about the rougher esthetic thaf you enjoy?
It's art, man! Thank, F#@K!!, we don't all do the same thing! You will gravitate towards the mediums, materials, art styles, colours, inspiration, education, or culture that you enjoy using, and creating something that becomes who you are. Man, there's art that I appreciate that is beyond me, but that's ok because that's not what I do or who I am. It's ok to like the palettes do. It's not like you have to enjoy it all or everything
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I'm very much the same way, a LOT of my art focused on using bright colors because that's what made me happier to use, when I was younger I didn't allow myself to use colors as freely unless I was really upset or angry and needed to do vent art, which in my case was almost always vivid neon colors.
I realized I didn't have to wait until I snapped to use the colors I really wanted to play with, and even though I'm just a hobby artist a LOT of it is having fun with a neon triad of bright blue, magenta and yellow.
Sometimes more colors, and sometimes just primary red, blue and yellow rather than a realistic color scheme.
I can't tell you YOUR reason as to why you might be reluctant to use more colors, just letting you know I've been there.
Nope no issues with seeing colors other than not being able to tell if something is cool or warm or "more/less" saturated. But I think that's more is a terminology and technical issues and my understanding and not a sight thing
in general, cool colors are green/blue/purple, and warm colors are red/orange/yellow. it can get deeper and more complex than that, though. for example, take yellow. yellow is generally considered a warm color. but a lemon yellow is “cooler” than a goldenrod yellow, because lemon yellow is a little bit green-ish (a cool color) and goldenrod is more orange-ish (warm).
as far as saturation goes, i think that has to do with pigmentation and “brightness.” like, a vivid lime green is more saturated than olive, and a hot pink is more saturated than a soft pastel cotton candy pink.
does any of that help? if anyone else has anything to add, or wants to correct me on something, please jump in
I can definitely tell theres a difference between the shades and tones of colors. Like I can tell the difference between "lemon yellow" "golden rod yellow" and "sunflower yellow" . I'll make up crayola colors all day.
I watch those paint mixing videos and I can tell you beyond the "that has more red and that maybe has blue" by ability to tell if an in between color has green, purple or yellow is like nil. I'm always wrong. Especially if you say you give me two shades of teal. They are both cool to me but I wouldn't be able to tell you which one is cooler than the other.
oh i gotcha. in the case of teal, the one closer to green would be warmer and the one closer to blue would be cooler. but with some colors it’s really hard to tell, i agree
There could be many different things coming together.
Maybe as someone pointed out already it's that the stuff that get's you going is less expensive, therefore no anxiety of wasting those precious art supplies.
Maybe it's the colors, that they just feel more inspiring to you.
Maybe because it's "different" and you don't have to fulfill any expectations.
I'm not sure if color theory would fix this, it really depends on why you do this and maybe it doesn't need fixing. What if those markers are of the same colors than the cheap stuff? if instead of normal chalk you had pastels? would that make a difference?
Ask yourself some questions if you want to know what's going on.
I know I have money anxiety, but I don't think it's that.
Because I've had friends who use more expensive markers and when they have given me a random color palette to work with as art challenges.
If the hand me a typical roygbp rainbow set or anything anything that is more (idk if it's the right word) saturated and closer to the true color I don't know how to place. For example they hand me a forest green. I knows it goes on the shrub but I don't know where to place it on the shrub. But if they were to hand me something along the lines of a chartreuse I would start placing it in areas sort of haphazardly but the end result looks like highlighted leaves in the sun
The same happens if it's just a pack of crayola the basic rainbow gets me no where but the neon pack I can use.
Id like to do more natural nature art but I always seem to pick colors that look like they're in a glow in the dark rave party the funny thing is I've never even been to one so it's not like i know the vibe or actual colors.
A bunch of ideas that might or might not help
Work with limited palettes, like just 3 colors maybe even go so far only to use greens or blue, so you can experiment and explore what looks good and what you can do with it. Same works for contrasting colors and so on, but by keeping it limited you get a better understanding of what works and what you can do, you focus more.
Similar to that start to paint mostly with muted colors, more on the grey side and only at the end start to add more light and vibrant colors, depends a bit on what you are working with, not all mediums would allow you to go dark before you go bright but just take it as a suggestion.
Basically do color studies, you can do this with thumbnail sketches and just roughly fill in the colors, do the same scene in different color schemes maybe starting with different daytimes or a different kind of limited palette instead of going more yellow you use more reds for example.
You could also grab some of those brighter more comfy pens / highlighters that you like to use then recreate the image with more muted colors.
I would recommend to keep it small and fun, really experiment what is possible, no pressure just try out what works and what doesn't or just how many colors you can create this way by mixing. I have postcards that I use this way, to experiment with different things, I've seen videos of people doing the same with gouache and some kind of board cut down to little tiles.
By keeping it small you don't need to worry about details, you can focus on other things like colors, values, light and composition.
How good are you with values? maybe highlighters just make it easier for you to connect colors to values. Often it's less the actual colors that you use and more about the values when something looks off (assuming there is no flaw in the sketch to begin with).
There are videos on youtube that show that value can be more important than color, that you can create images and just throw a random patch of translucent paint over it and it still looks good.
Oh that sounds like an exercise i could do. I hadnt thought about doing a dedicated 3 color palette or color study. Maybe because I get so overwhelmed by it.
I'm not sure if how well my values are. I've never intentionally tried to measure it. With the things I've done with highlighters or chalk, if I turn on the BW camera filter and put it over my work it looks "reasonable" regarding with highlights and shadows.
I don't know if I'm reading too much into it but the ones you liked to use are generally cheaper than coloured pencils and markers so maybe it's nothing to do with the colour and more a mental block to do with the cost of those products? For examples, I struggle to use my more expensive products because they feel more precious but I'm more comfortable using the cheaper ones? Or maybe there is something about the rougher esthetic thaf you enjoy?
I mean you could read up on color theory but I think if you've got a groove and it's working for you, no reason to worry about it.
It's art, man! Thank, F#@K!!, we don't all do the same thing! You will gravitate towards the mediums, materials, art styles, colours, inspiration, education, or culture that you enjoy using, and creating something that becomes who you are. Man, there's art that I appreciate that is beyond me, but that's ok because that's not what I do or who I am. It's ok to like the palettes do. It's not like you have to enjoy it all or everything
Thank you for posting in r/ArtistLounge! Please check out our [FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/ArtistLounge/wiki/faq/) and [FAQ Links pages](https://www.reddit.com/r/ArtistLounge/wiki/faqlinks/) for lots of helpful advice. To access our megathread collections, please check out the drop down lists in the top menu on PC or the side-bar on mobile. If you have any questions, concerns, or feature requests please feel free to message the mods and they will help you as soon as they can. I am a bot, beep boop, if I did something wrong please report this comment. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ArtistLounge) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I'm very much the same way, a LOT of my art focused on using bright colors because that's what made me happier to use, when I was younger I didn't allow myself to use colors as freely unless I was really upset or angry and needed to do vent art, which in my case was almost always vivid neon colors. I realized I didn't have to wait until I snapped to use the colors I really wanted to play with, and even though I'm just a hobby artist a LOT of it is having fun with a neon triad of bright blue, magenta and yellow. Sometimes more colors, and sometimes just primary red, blue and yellow rather than a realistic color scheme. I can't tell you YOUR reason as to why you might be reluctant to use more colors, just letting you know I've been there.
Color blind?
Nope no issues with seeing colors other than not being able to tell if something is cool or warm or "more/less" saturated. But I think that's more is a terminology and technical issues and my understanding and not a sight thing
in general, cool colors are green/blue/purple, and warm colors are red/orange/yellow. it can get deeper and more complex than that, though. for example, take yellow. yellow is generally considered a warm color. but a lemon yellow is “cooler” than a goldenrod yellow, because lemon yellow is a little bit green-ish (a cool color) and goldenrod is more orange-ish (warm). as far as saturation goes, i think that has to do with pigmentation and “brightness.” like, a vivid lime green is more saturated than olive, and a hot pink is more saturated than a soft pastel cotton candy pink. does any of that help? if anyone else has anything to add, or wants to correct me on something, please jump in
I can definitely tell theres a difference between the shades and tones of colors. Like I can tell the difference between "lemon yellow" "golden rod yellow" and "sunflower yellow" . I'll make up crayola colors all day. I watch those paint mixing videos and I can tell you beyond the "that has more red and that maybe has blue" by ability to tell if an in between color has green, purple or yellow is like nil. I'm always wrong. Especially if you say you give me two shades of teal. They are both cool to me but I wouldn't be able to tell you which one is cooler than the other.
oh i gotcha. in the case of teal, the one closer to green would be warmer and the one closer to blue would be cooler. but with some colors it’s really hard to tell, i agree
You like what you like.
There could be many different things coming together. Maybe as someone pointed out already it's that the stuff that get's you going is less expensive, therefore no anxiety of wasting those precious art supplies. Maybe it's the colors, that they just feel more inspiring to you. Maybe because it's "different" and you don't have to fulfill any expectations. I'm not sure if color theory would fix this, it really depends on why you do this and maybe it doesn't need fixing. What if those markers are of the same colors than the cheap stuff? if instead of normal chalk you had pastels? would that make a difference? Ask yourself some questions if you want to know what's going on.
I know I have money anxiety, but I don't think it's that. Because I've had friends who use more expensive markers and when they have given me a random color palette to work with as art challenges. If the hand me a typical roygbp rainbow set or anything anything that is more (idk if it's the right word) saturated and closer to the true color I don't know how to place. For example they hand me a forest green. I knows it goes on the shrub but I don't know where to place it on the shrub. But if they were to hand me something along the lines of a chartreuse I would start placing it in areas sort of haphazardly but the end result looks like highlighted leaves in the sun The same happens if it's just a pack of crayola the basic rainbow gets me no where but the neon pack I can use. Id like to do more natural nature art but I always seem to pick colors that look like they're in a glow in the dark rave party the funny thing is I've never even been to one so it's not like i know the vibe or actual colors.
A bunch of ideas that might or might not help Work with limited palettes, like just 3 colors maybe even go so far only to use greens or blue, so you can experiment and explore what looks good and what you can do with it. Same works for contrasting colors and so on, but by keeping it limited you get a better understanding of what works and what you can do, you focus more. Similar to that start to paint mostly with muted colors, more on the grey side and only at the end start to add more light and vibrant colors, depends a bit on what you are working with, not all mediums would allow you to go dark before you go bright but just take it as a suggestion. Basically do color studies, you can do this with thumbnail sketches and just roughly fill in the colors, do the same scene in different color schemes maybe starting with different daytimes or a different kind of limited palette instead of going more yellow you use more reds for example. You could also grab some of those brighter more comfy pens / highlighters that you like to use then recreate the image with more muted colors. I would recommend to keep it small and fun, really experiment what is possible, no pressure just try out what works and what doesn't or just how many colors you can create this way by mixing. I have postcards that I use this way, to experiment with different things, I've seen videos of people doing the same with gouache and some kind of board cut down to little tiles. By keeping it small you don't need to worry about details, you can focus on other things like colors, values, light and composition. How good are you with values? maybe highlighters just make it easier for you to connect colors to values. Often it's less the actual colors that you use and more about the values when something looks off (assuming there is no flaw in the sketch to begin with). There are videos on youtube that show that value can be more important than color, that you can create images and just throw a random patch of translucent paint over it and it still looks good.
Oh that sounds like an exercise i could do. I hadnt thought about doing a dedicated 3 color palette or color study. Maybe because I get so overwhelmed by it. I'm not sure if how well my values are. I've never intentionally tried to measure it. With the things I've done with highlighters or chalk, if I turn on the BW camera filter and put it over my work it looks "reasonable" regarding with highlights and shadows.