White is commonly categorised as a colour but it is in fact a shade. white is present when all the pigments on the spectrum merge and the
Painting with the different shades of white gets you to really start observing the different tones and how shades appears side by side . Examples of some artists that iv’e looked into who explore this well include Claude Monet and Giorgio Morandi.
Claude Monet : Ice Floes 1893
Ice Floes is was a piece amongst many, Monet worked on a series of paintings looking at the snow and ice. The painting being shown above is a great example of using white on white but still having the details and depth needed to bring the landscape alive. When using white you have to be very smart in the placement of each shade you also need to know the tones. This particular piece is imitating ice and snow there for uses more cooler tones like blues and greys.
Giorgio Morandi: Natura Morta 1946
Morandi was most well known for his still life oil paintings. He like Monet also explored the uses of white but by painting white objects. He looked at the different shadows it would cast and the different tones present on the objects. But unlike the example from Monet i showed previously Morandi uses more warmer tones of white. In the photo shown you can see how he has incorporated other colours to help him achieve the correct shade of white.
My own example’s (30 minute exercise’s)
These are my examples of using different shades of white to do these paintings. I really like th outcomes the actual paintings are the greatest but i am really starting to get a feel of getting the right tones and working with shadowing.