March is all about colour
This month inside The Expressive Mess Club, we’re diving into one of the most powerful concepts in painting: colour temperature. In the new demonstration class, I guide you through the process of painting a sunlit garden scene featuring a Mediterranean-style house surrounded by lush foliage. Throughout the lesson, we focus on how warm and cool colours work together to create the illusion of light, depth, and atmosphere. Rather than relying on heavy darks, we use subtle shifts in temperature—placing warm, glowing colours where the sunlight hits, and cooler tones in the shadows—to bring the painting to life.
During the class, I also talk about the work of master painter Joaquín Sorolla, who famously used warm golden hues to capture sunlight while allowing cooler blues and greens to describe shadow. This simple but powerful approach helps create paintings that feel luminous and full of natural light. Even if you’re working in a loose, expressive style, understanding colour temperature can instantly elevate your work and make your scenes feel more believable and dynamic.
Alongside the new class, our Colour Palette of the Month explores a collection of moody, atmospheric colours.
These tones are designed to create depth and richness while still allowing moments of warmth to shine through. Think soft shadowy blues, earthy neutrals, muted violets, and warm accents that glow against darker passages. Moody palettes are wonderful for encouraging expressive brushwork and layered colour relationships, and they invite you to experiment with subtle variations in temperature rather than relying on high contrast.
As always, I encourage you to treat this palette as a starting point for exploration. Try using the colours in landscapes, still life subjects, or abstract studies. Play with warm light against cool shadow, soften edges, and allow colours to mingle on the surface. The goal isn’t perfection—it’s discovering how colour relationships can create mood, movement, and atmosphere in your paintings. I can’t wait to see what you create this month!