>>3822905For trad painters, figure out their palette, the range they work in and what colors they avoid, and the most used shortcuts and color harmonies across the gamut. It gives you an idea of what they want to be saturated ,what they avoid, and ranges of color they want the most variety in.
More generally, I look for general hue value and chroma choices and identify different contrasts between them. I'm not really big on color theory as a way of structuring a painting because it's more complex than some color wheel makes it out to be, but being able to identify complementary and analogous relationships or whatever within a painting is key to understanding the effect. A lot of artists 'mix' color and create color harmonies using different types of layers, so there's a lot there to explore. Color temperature and artificial light are also good to study. Tweaking levels in illustrative work can have broad effects that are a signature of an artist.
The biggest things I look for are color choices in highlights and shadows, use of different types of contrast, 'extraneous' colors, and how they use colors from the neutral zone. Warm neutrals make or break a painting and how they interact with other colors is the center of most work.
Like I said, I don't really copy directly, I'll try to figure out what they're doing and then experiment on my own with what I've learned.
