Vanilla Beans: If You’re Happy and You Know It
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IMPORTANT!!!
I haven’t cleaned my mailing list in THREE years which is why I have at least 1,000 subscribers who never open a single newsletter.
You’re obviously not one of them.
Anyway, I can’t stand it any longer. I’m cleaning house.
To continue receiving Vanilla Beans, click the button below to subscribe to the 2026 Mailing List.
In a few weeks, I’ll ditch this old list and send to the fresh one.
Oh good, you’re back.
Now that we’ve mopped and dusted a bit, let’s return to color theory.
I left you last week with a burning desire to find your long-lost color wheel. Some of you were digging through boxes and under couch cushions…
Because even though I said “the color wheel won’t make you a better artist…”
I mean c’mon, what kind of a color theory teacher doesn’t use a color wheel?
I purchase most of my art supplies from Dick Blick. Shop using my affiliate link to support this free newsletter.
Surely I was being sarcastic. You’d better have that wheel handy, just in case, right?
Relax. If you couldn’t find your wheel or the dog ate half of it, just scroll down to the Vanilla Library link below and you can a download free one.
But honestly, we won’t use color wheels for a while. Heck, most of color theory doesn’t even involve a color wheel…
And every good color theory class begins with a warning.
IF YOU’RE HAPPY AND YOU KNOW IT
A coloring video popped up in my YouTube suggestion feed: “Five Things I Want to Learn in 2026”
And this is total Amy catnip because it’s easy market research. I want to teach what you want to learn and this chick is giving me an itemized list. Cool.
So I’m stuck watching a never ending hand-flapping video…
Oh, you know what I mean— someone doesn’t want to show her face and she’s not coloring anything, so we sit there watching her hands flap around.
My apologies if you’re a big fan of the hand-flaps. Mea culpa if you’re a flapper yourself. I’m sure you’re very good at it.
Anyways… I’m waitin’ and waitin’ until she finally gets around to the list.
For the record, I don’t remember her exact goals but it was something like this:
metallic shine
sparkly pointillism
dopamine coloring
color theory
marker basing
And I start humming that song from Sesame Street…
This was on the B side. You’re welcome.
With a couple clicks, I see the hand flapper met or greatly exceeded all her 2025 goals. Huzzah! And if her coloring book flip-throughs are any indication, she’s pretty darned happy with her coloring.
Everything is absofreakin’ awesome.
Which means she’s gonna fail spectacularly at goal #4 this year.
Oh Amy, don’t be such a snob. Of course she can learn color theory!
Nope. She really won’t.
She’s too happy.
If you turn out the lights and jack the heat, this is kinda what college level color theory courses look like.
Oh, and amp up the smug.
A lecture hall full of kids who know it all.
And that’s exactly why I didn’t learn a darned thing about color theory until I was in my thirties.
I keep my finished artwork in drawers and zippered portfolio cases. Right now, I could randomly grab any project and tell you twenty things wrong with it.
Why don’t I frame my own art? Because there’s twenty things wrong with everything.
Hell is a museum with my twenties on every wall.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate my art. There’s a ton of stuff I’m very proud of. But artists are artists because we’re always trying to improve the things we keep screwing up.
Training allows us to see our own flaws and vanity means we’re obsessed with fixing ‘em.
Believe me, I’ve got a heckuv’a lot more than five things to learn in 2026.
In a lot of ways, unhappiness is the natural state of artists. Unhappy is our motivation for jumping out of bed in the morning and practicing the same thing over and over until we die of frustration or make peace with it.
People who are happy aren’t on the same quest.
And happy people have zero need for color theory.
So I’m warning you right now, if you’re in love with the last five things you colored…
Well, I’m not going to say you’re in the wrong place but we’re really sweatin’ the details when we move from technique and proficiency to color theory.
And honestly, that’s another reason why you can’t find your color wheel. Or it’s on the wall but you never look at it.
Happy people… you can hear color theory explained over and over… some of you will even nod your head because you think you understand it…
But you can’t relate to it,
So you don’t really get it.
And you’re never gonna use it.
Color theory isn’t a technique.
And it’s not a rulebook you whip out at the start of a project to make decisions easier.
Just to prove how dense I am, I was using color theory for years without realizing it. One day I looked down and I was like ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh…
That’s what the professor was talking about! And what about… OMG, I do that too. How did this happen? There’s theory everywhere!
I just had to be unhappy enough.
And you my dear friend, you need to get unhappy too.
_____
Next week, we’ll talk more about what color theory ain’t.
IF YOU LIKED TODAY’S ARTICLE, SUPPORT FUTURE FREE LESSONS
COLOR THEORY CLASSES
We’re livestreaming TODAY inside the Color Coach membership.
If you look closely at my chocolate brown color study here, you’ll see red, goldenrod, purple, lavender, hot pink, indigo, and baby blue.
Where did all that color come from?
Theory, baby.
And you can do it too.
Color Coach is an accelerator addition to the standard Color Wonk membership.
CC students are improving how they see color and thus how they use color.
Intermediate coloring skills required.
Fine Feathered Friends
Let’s color a cute little bird…
Oh, I’d love to Amy but birds are so difficult. I can never figure out where to place the shade!
Red Bird is a sweet little introduction to coloring realistic birds from the anatomy perspective. Birds are easier than you think when we use observation and logic.
Anyone can color better birds!
Red Bird is now available at Color Wonk
A whole history of classic courses are available now. Instant access including study exercises.
Real art lessons, not nifty novelty techniques
Looking for my free color wheel? This is the spot.
CURRENT PASSWORD: RubberDuckie
RECOMMENDED COLOR WHEEL AND CARDS
This is the color wheel I bought recently and I only got it because it works with the color cards we use in my Color Coach group. The cards are great. The wheel? It’s a wheel.
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