Painting Natural Wood With The Rule Of Shifting Hues

Hey there everybody, Joe here. Thanks for tuning in again. I'm going to show you how I make a wood pole sound like metal when you hit it. This wall behind me, this, this far wall, I'm in the process of repainting this downstairs. That's why there's all this echo right now, because I'm repainting this downstairs area. And so I, you know, the, the wall back there was a real dark color. This was just a metal pole with chips coming off of it. I wanted it to look more inviting. One of the greatest discoveries of all my time that I've spent researching painting techniques and in researching the way color works is a rule that I like to call the rule of shifting hues. The rule of shifting hues is simply that as the color of something is illuminated by white light, the hue shifts toward yellow as it brightens. And the closer to yellow the hue of that, that color is, the more it moves toward yellow as it brightens. So think of a spectrum. Red is closer to yellow than violet, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet. Just think of a rainbow. Well, the violet is the furthest frequency from that yellow and violet does not shift its hue. It just gets lighter. But then a, a violet that is mixed with red. So a reddish violet will start to shift its hue toward red as it brightens, which is toward the yellow. And, and then when something is, is a very light color, it may just shift all the way to a bright white when it's illuminated. And so while a color shifts toward yellow, that does not necessarily mean that it turns to yellow. It just means that it, it shifts its hue that direction, meaning that wherever it is on that spectrum, it moves to the hue that is closer to yellow, unless it's violet. I've never really officially put this in, in writing and posted somewhere. So I'm going to do that. And so I'm posting the link to that page. If you want to see more thorough description of this, this rule of shifting hues, it's been completely transforming to my work. You know, when you just paint things solid colors, it's a very different feel than any natural substance because paint is kind of unique in the way that it's a very heavy and opaque pigment in comparison with something like wood or rock or, or something that's has a lot more transparency to, to its particles that, that make it up. A substance in nature will shift its hue because light can go into that substance and illuminate it. But something that, like metal that's very dense and does not let light go beyond the surface, light just bounces off of the metal. It doesn't really shift its hue because there's no filtering of the frequencies as they travel through the, that substance. The shifting hue happens because of the filtering of, of the white light. And so I now use it whenever I'm putting any colors together. I'm, I'm thinking of that rule. What can I put together to resemble that rule of, of shifting hues? You know, where something gets brighter, it moves toward yellow, or it gets darker and moves away from yellow. Now, the way I used it on this pole is I put a yellow base coat on, and then I used brown. This brown is a very reddish brown. I'm setting it up so that I can do my light and shadow my light with this. I did with the yellow, wherever I shadowed it, I shadowed it with that red brown color. And when they mix, they make somewhat of an orange tone. It's very simple. I just made it get yellower as it gets brighter, but it's very consistent. So wherever I got really bright, I added more and more white, but I made sure that as I went darker, I first added yellow. As I started to move away from my bright white, I would add yellow first, and then start adding brown to the yellow as it got darker. So in a sense, I'm, I'm using a mid-tone that is, that is the yellow, where on, on the bright side of the yellow, I'm adding white. On the dark side of the yellow, I'm adding the brown, but keeping the yellow in between. I've talked a lot about using a mid-tone, but this particular use of color is specifically trying to demonstrate that shifting hue of the wood being moved toward the yellow as it gets brighter. And it caused this to look a lot more three-dimensional. So then the second way that I used the same rule was just by naturally simulating it by, by putting a layer of glaze over it, knowing that my bright base layer shines through my darker glaze and naturally illuminating it. I, the, the brown and black that I put with my clear glaze that I put over it as a last step, if I put that over a lighter color, well, as, as that dark brown glaze gets brighter, it also gets yellower. The, the shifting hue naturally happens. I don't have to simulate it if I'm putting a transparent layer. So my steps were first, you know, doing the light and the shadow with the paint and then doing a last layer with the glaze in order to fine tune the details and, and add a more of a realistic diversity of color to it. Even though it looked, it looked sufficient just with the paint, the, the glaze, you know, I felt adds even more of the same effect. And so I use that, that glaze to add my fine details. You can say, I put little bits of black and brown in here, everywhere I put the pure black at the very end, I surrounded that black with the brown. So it goes from the black to the brown, to the yellow, so that it very clearly is moving toward the yellow as it gets brighter. And, and so then as it gets darker, moving away, it goes yellow to the brown before it gets to the black. I never went straight from the, the yellow wood color to a black shadow because that would, that would create like a greenish intermediate color that does not resemble the natural shift of the, the wood. If there's one color relationship rule that I think just helps with everything, it is that, it's this rule of shifting hues. And so, you know, I'm, I'm more and more fascinated with it as I use it more in my work. It was just today that I was thinking about that, how I'm using it and realizing, you know, it, it's actually, it actually has that magnetic nature to the yellow, where the closer the color is to the yellow, that's really what's happening, is the closer the frequency is to the yellow frequency, the more extremely it moves to the yellow as it's illuminated. That, that seems to be the pattern to it. So I'm definitely going to be, you know, looking more into it. As always, you know, I'm just fascinated with the, the mysteries of the natural world, but that's enough, that's enough of my nerdy color research talk. So I'm going to move to some, some comments on the last video. Okay. I got my laptop open here, looking at the video I posted a couple of weeks ago. That was the video of me painting clouds on a ceiling over in Texas. Crystal Lopez says, I am an artist from Belize. Thank you very much, Crystal, for tuning in all the way over there in Belize. How much would you charge for a job like that? I think I'm undercharging. Also, do you put your signature on something like that? Well, the signature, you know, I don't normally put my signature. Maybe I should, maybe I should put my signature on it. This, you know, walls are not collectible, so I don't bother putting a signature on something that doesn't have collectibility, but it'd be fun to do it still. How much do I charge? The last thing I want to do is try to pretend like I know how to charge for jobs. I'm always more interested in, in the research of how things work and how to, how to get the look. Now, I've always just tried to gradually raise my price as the demand directly around me increased. I always wanted to be at something that was appropriate, that felt appropriate, that's subjective, but I never wanted to be the guy that was so expensive that, you know, by the time I was done, my customers would wonder in a year if they should have spent that. I never wanted that to happen, so I purposely didn't shoot for the sky on my prices. I also realized that it was annoying to other people in the trade if I went too low on my prices, but, and that's because, you know, if you go too low, then, then you're taking work from perhaps a very abundant pool of work because it's at a very low price that people that are just entering the industry are interested in having. Nobody liked it if they felt like I was taking the low guy's work, you know, with a high skill level, doing it for cheap so that they couldn't even, you know, make anything. So, there was an appropriate middle mark, but where it is, I don't know. You're on your own on that one. Jelani Atkins, I hope I said that name right. Hey, Joe, you impress me with every video posts for so many reasons. All right. Hey, thank you. That's very flattering. I especially like this comment because you used bullet points. I don't know how you did that on a YouTube comment. I don't know how you use the dot, dot, dot. Your artistic talent. Boom. You're continuing improvement. Boom. It just seems so official. I am highly complimented and overly flattered by, by that comment, but thank you very much. My very favorite part is this. You are probably a wonderful and enjoyable friend. That, I feel like that's the highest mark to shoot for. That's what I want to be remembered for, not the painting. Thank you very 1871 for the nice compliment on the painting. Martin says, you look very tired, man. Yeah, I was pretty tired in that video. A lot of that is just that I'm getting older too. I feel like I'm constantly more tired. Neus Costa says, cheers from Spain. Thank you very much. I'm a painting teacher from Ibiza and always stealing your tips. Not only yours, but I have a list of nice YouTube channels in my class. Well, good for you for doing that. That's good. I always have respect for another teacher. That's, that's a job that is underappreciated. Thank you, Adam Tidwell, for the nice compliment again. Thank you very much. Joyce Hill says, I think of you often when I look at the clouds you painted on my dining room ceiling. What? I did that? Joyce Hill? Thank you very much for giving me that shout out. I loved doing that job in South Carolina. That was super cool, man. I guess I'm so spoiled with nice customers. This, I mean, this is like royal treatment. And Joyce, she sent me a, she sent me a Christmas card with the update from, from her family, you know, making me feel important. So thank you, Joyce, for taking the time to comment on my video. And once again, it was a pleasure doing that job for you. Stephanie says, Joe, Instagram? Well, yeah, you know, I mean, I, we started an Instagram account, but then I couldn't hang with the smartphone. It was too smart for me. I had to go back to my flip phone. Where is that? The poet says, and thank you once again for commenting, says, is just asking a question about preserving a piece of art after it's painted, specifically exterior work that's, you know, the, the UV damage, it fades the color. And you can, you can see that in the video I recently posted of me restoring the mural over at Flagstaff Medical Center, that, that big landscape mountain forest scene with the, with the stream flowing through the middle of it. On the first video I did, did of that, that the sun had beat on that picture for several years and the, everything red or yellowish was just gone. I mean, the greens and blues stayed, but, but the yellow and the red were just gone, brown gone. And so it's important to use paints that have a high rating for UV resistance, whether it's in the pigment itself or whatever the acrylic medium is that the pigment is in. I don't know a whole ton about that kind of stuff, but buying more expensive acrylic paint is a big help in how long it lasts. I like to use water-based polyurethane when I'm, when I'm doing a clear coat to protect, protect my work. And I, I never found one that I was like, well, this is the one, this is the one to use. I used one from Sherman Williams called Sure Clear. I used polycrylic that Minwax makes that, but they're, they are different kinds of, of polyurethanes that are in a water base and it, it doesn't make the color last forever. It's, it still will fade. So you always have to evaluate if it's worthwhile to put that on, or if it's more worthwhile just to do routine touch-ups on the colors as the sun begins to fade those. But the biggest difference is really just in using expensive acrylic paint that has a, you know, real high percentage of UV resistant material. Tegan, Tegan says, Tegan, Tegan, Tegan says, what is Cheffers from Denmark and Holland? Is that really weird? Or did you mean to say cheers? I'm thinking it was cheers because the F and the E are kind of close together. Cheers from Denmark and Holland. Hey, thanks a lot for tuning in. Appreciate your scientific approach to painting. I would like to know more what kind of paint you use. And so you can see more about the kind of paint that I like to use. This is like a similar to the last comment, but you can read more about it on my FAQ page, learn.muraljoe.com slash FAQ. Mr. Music Man 82, thank you very much for the nice compliment. Good question about any suggestions for, for a neck back pain as you're looking up for a long time. Yeah, that was an issue in this job, painting the ceiling. Look at my video, how to save your neck while painting ceiling, something like that. I'll post the link. I take a towel and, you know, I just kind of put myself in a full Nelson. You put your shoulders forward and it pulls on the, on the back of the neck. Now it's good to put a lot of padding in the back of that. So in that video, I just want to warn you that that was the first time I did it. I found out later that, you know, after the prolonged amount of time, if there's, if you tie a knot behind your neck and after hours, it starts to bruise your neck. So you know, now I put the knot down low and I just kind of tie it in a loop and then I slip it over my head. I should just do another video. You can see me wearing it in this, in this video of me painting the ceiling. I just put that loop over my head and then pull it behind my neck. So I, so it's in front of my shoulders and then behind my neck and my back. And then it totally supports the weight of my skull. And I have lots of padding rolled up inside of that area that's behind my neck so that it doesn't bruise my, my neck after long hours. It is not the most comfortable thing ever. And I'll also warn you that if you got, if you got, uh, you know, armpit hair, then, then it's good to wear a sleeveless shirt because this, the shirts going like this on your armpit and it, man, it starts to hurt after a while. It's like a pair of ice skates and rollerblades that are too tight. It starts really hurting your ankle. You know what I mean? I even use it to sleep on the airplane. Now I get on an airplane with my blanket and then I roll it up and put some stuffing inside of the area that will be behind my neck. And then I just tie it in a loop. And then I put my hand through the loop. People think, oh, you hurt your arm. You did something. You know, I'm in that airplane chair and, you know, I'm sleeping away like this, but my head stays upright without, without doing that, you know, and I got a big heavy head. So that really counts. All right. I'm going to stop there for now. And I want to thank you guys for tuning in again to another video and I'll look forward to seeing you next time.