| Author | Message | ||
  Rekha Senior Member Username: Rekha Post Number: 389 Registered: 8-2006 |
I don't think too much but proceed with a right brain fusillade of intiuitive painting...Robert what goes on in your head between the time you decide on the essence of a subject and the time you finally settle on a pattern of shapes and colors?...Marie All this was today's dilemma for me as we were given a few coloured chalks (black, white, sanguine, blue, green, pink) for the first time to draw the figure, A2 size. Although I did step back to get the values right I know that the colours did not look anything like I was seeing. The quoted comments were in 2006. Has anyone's thinking has changed since | ||
Eugene |
I NEVER DREAM ABOUT MY WORK. However, sometimes, when I'm half asleep, I think of a solution to a painting problem. As for others dreaming of my work-- they're probaby nightmares. | ||
Eric |
Point number nine: Linda, people actually dream about your work?.....And you can hear those dreams others have about your work? I'll bet that's never happened to any of us ordinary artists. | ||
Linda |
Marie wrote, "What goes on in your head between the time you decide on the essence of a subject and the time you finally settle on a pattern of shapes and colors?" I'll give it a shot: 1. What is "it?" The focal point (the everything, the reason to make the painting), sometimes it's the sparkle. Largest value contrast saved for this point most often. 2. What colors convey the meaning of "it?" Decide upon what palette will be used (the fewer the colors chosen, the more happy I usually am with the work)...color the mood. 3. Now, is the entire painting mostly warm, or mostly cool? 4. What will be the discord (contrast)? Usually the contrast is the opposite of what the painting is mostly (warm or cool). 5. Arrange masses with artistic license taken to regulate and articulate flows of light. 6. Value sketches and color sketches. This is just to push all the boundaries further, experiment, and feel I have explored even the "way out" ideas. Sometimes I do these minimally (just a single value sketch). Most often, I'll do a mini-painting of the idea very small to see if it'll work well. If the idea won't work well as a painting, this is the step that makes it obvious. 7. Dream on it. Listen for the sketches to tell me things. Once I'm set-- 8. Talk with and listen to the materials to be used (surprise!), and then PAINT. 9. Be alert for dreams about the work. I've even listened to dreams others have had about my works-in-progress. Listen for the painting to speak to me. It's usually finished sometime near this point. | ||
marie |
I can relate to your experience with the waterfall. Adjusting my palette part of the way through a painting has ruined more paintings than I would like to admit. | ||
Robert |
I think, to my eye, each yellow pigment produces extrmemely different hues in mixtures with the rest of my palette that one yellow lends a sort commonality to the mixtures. I'll never forget the first time this struck me. I was painting a view up a white water river to a distant rock formation with a waterfall. Above that was dense, distant foliage. Up to the waterfall I used raw sienna but then, to get the softness of the extrmeme distant foliage, I mixed my blue greens from lemon. It just looked like it belonged in a different painting. This is a common experience, I'm sure, but it struck my that had I limited it to all raw sienna it would have been more unified. From then on, I strongly consider one yellow as a unifier in a painting. In figure work it is almost always Grumbacher's Finest / Prismacolor (not Academy-totally different) raw sienna--a pure tan with no yellow undertones. | ||
Robert |
yes | ||
marie |
That's an fascinating observation about sticking to a single yellow. I am wondering why this would be the case. Perhaps because yellow has an inherently light value you can intersperse it with other pigments thoughout a painting without affecting your overall value structure? I am thinking that maybe the yellow functions well as a unifier. If you use several yellows then you lose some of the unifying quality. I don't know. It's just a guess. Do you consider earth yellows (raw sienna or an ochre) as yellow in this context? | ||
Robert |
(Marie): "Can I get away with fewer pigments than I originally selected?" Something I have discovered is that I almost have to limit myself to a single yellow or the painting doesn't hang together as I would like. Limiting reds and blues seems less crucial. | ||
marie |
I have been thinking about what process I use to work out design issues. Although the process varies, I believe it goes something like this in my more successful paintings: 1) What is interesting about the pose or the subject? If were to try to describe the pose to a friend, what is the first thing I would say? Is it a mood? The way the light plays on the subject? An abstract line that runs through the subject? A shape? A texture? A color? The answer varies wildly with each painting, and it doesn't have to be something that I see literally. 2) How am I going to fit the subject on the page? Do I want to do a head study? Do I want to draw the whole figure? Should the paper be horizontal or vertical? Should I use a quarter sheet, a half sheet, or some other size? 3) What is my basic value scheme? Will the painting have primarily light, middle, or dark values? I usually rank the values by quantity --- for example, a large amount of lights, a medium amount of mid values, and small amount of darks. 4) I work out value sketches with 4 values -- white, light, middle value, and dark. I don't have the skill to deal with more than 4. 5) I try to minimize the number of shapes from the value sketches. If I have too many shapes, I go back and try more value sketches. 6) I select pigments. Are there any specific pigments I need? (e.g. - I find raw sienna, yellow ochre, or cad yellow pale almost indispensible for flesh colors). Do I have a warm color? Do I have cool color? Can I get good darks? If I need a saturated color, do I have it? Can I get the range of colors that I need? Are the colors that I will need most frequently easy to mix from the pigments I selected? 7) Minimize the palette. Can I get away with fewer pigments than I originally selected? 4 - 8 pigments seems to be the norm for me on most paintings. 8) Decide on brushes and paper that will support my design idea. 9) Start painting. | ||
Dake |
Eric, I've always found a tonal study in charcoal the best way to start a watercolor.A sketch irons our all the construction/compositional problems Charcoal I find is the closest medium to watercolor. | ||
Raliegh |
Recognizing values is tantamont to a good painting and since I'm weak in that area, I just ordered Joseph Fettingis Value CD. There is probably no way I could go to his workshop and not talk so I opted for the CD. | ||
Robert |
Marie-- Given what you've described re the pose, I think I would make the painting about the coat and make the figure high key. | ||
Eric |
However a painting is a painting and nature is nature. Well said, Dake. I'm constantly reminding myself that they're different. To me, nature is a starting point, and from there, the artist has to take over and create something appealing, using shapes and value and color. Does anyone else notice that a good preliminary value sketch results in a good painting? | ||
marie |
I this particular circumstance, I decided the bright red was important to the spirit of the pose. I could have decided something else was important, but I didn't. | ||
Dake |
Marie what I'm wondering is why you are restricted by hue? Unless you're painting a portrait of some *uniform* , but then even a recognizable icon...say the *stars and stripes* is still what it is if portrayed in black and white. Dake | ||
Eugene |
For my style of painting value is the most important item. If I do a good, pleasing value sketch, and follow it in my painting, the result is also almost always pleasing. I can change colors at will as long as they match the established values. For instance, I could change a red apple to green but not to yellow, because green and red are about the same value, but yellow is a much lighter value. I realize that this is a very simple example, but in most cases colors can be changed successfully to another of the same value. Before I begin a value sketch, I always ask myself “what are going to be the lightest and darkest spots in the painting”? Are they something that I want to be the most important? Also, I try to save the most vibrant colors for the center of interest. Of course all rules are meant to be broken. Sometimes intuition rules, but a little guidance helps. Also I believe intuitions get better after years of experence. | ||
marie |
Thanks for the responses. Let me explain what prompted the original post. Several weeks ago, the model showed up in a bright red baseball jacket. Although most of the time I tend to concentrate more on value than color, in this instance I decided that I really wanted to capture this bright red in my painting. I discovered that choosing the bright red severely resticted my value choices -- lightening the jacket made it pink, darkening the jacket made it maroon. Bright red is inherently a middle value, even when I juxtapose it with a visual complement. Consequently, I had to key everything other value in the painting off the middle value in the red jacket. Most of the time, I paint undraped figures and find that, probably because the local value of flesh is very unsaturated, I have a lot more latitude in my choice of colors and values. I can rearrange values and colors at will to suit my design needs. I can darken the flesh tone considerably and my painting reads as a figure in shadow, or I can lighten the flesh tone and it reads as a figure in light. I can also use a suprisingly wide range of color and still have the figure read as flesh. I began to wonder whether certain design choices are inherently more restrictive than other choices. Or, are there particular design problems that need to be resolved early in the process? My takeaway from the red jacket experience was that I had better decide early on whether I want to use a large area of bright color in a painting. Jandrle, I agree with you that a painting should be about the essence or emotion of the subject, and, Dake, I agree with you about the importance of tone and color. I suppose my question is --- what goes on in your head between the time you decide on the essence of a subject and the time you finally settle on a pattern of shapes and colors? | ||
Dake |
Marie, I think one needs to define their reason for painting first. Is it to reproduce an image for a sentimental or nostalgic reason, maybe to project an emotion, maybe to cause someone to think about an issue, maybe all of the above or none of them. However a painting is a painting and nature is nature. What makes two dimentional image work are the patterns of tone and colour. Imagination is your greatest asset. What will make your painting different from someone elses is how you see the shapes and choose which shapes to emphasize. Placing contrast at the focal point is a good place to start but it's just another part of the pattern. Try not to see the cluster of subject parts as individual and isolated objects but as bigger shapes joined by common tone, no two people will see these bigger shapes exactly the same hense you will develop a recognizable signature of shape arrangement. Think abstract in every painting. | ||
jandrle |
I had reached a point where I could nail almost any color... I painted a corner of NYC on Broadway and it was so over the top in color and detail I decided I needed to let it all go. Now I am working to redefine how I paint what I am looking at. The first thing I do is decide in my mind how to represent how the place makes me feel. If it is Florida, for instance, it might be over the top hot colors, bright, etc. This past fall I went to Scotland and visited the town my ancestors imigrated from, and was overwhelmed. I have painted it a bit and still feel that I haven't captured the essence of the place. Actually I think I need to revisit there, spend more time there. What I am saying I guess is that a painting should be more about the emotion and essence of the subject, rather than a representation of the object... though paintings like that say something about the artist too. Jane | ||
Robert |
I find these interesting questions and look forward to some incisive responses, Marie. Upon considering them, I realize I don't think too much but proceed with a right brain fusillade of intiuitive painting. I can't expalin, even to myself, most of the small decisions along the way. | ||
marie |
I have been wrestling lately with how to choose the values and colors in my paintings, especially when the subject has really bright local color. I have experimented enough to convince myself that I can't replicate the values and colors that I see in nature -- the paper and paint simply don't have the range that the eye is capable of seeing. I figure that color and value are all relative. The value/color you choose for one part of a painting depends on the value/color you have chosen in another part of the painting. If colors and values are relative, then how do you determine where to start? Where can you cheat and where can you not cheat? Do you have any sort of process to work out the colors and values? Do you have any questions you ask yourself as you are working out the structure? Do you have any rules of thumb? For example, do you say "I want that apple to be really red" and then key all your other colors and values against that initial red? Or do you say "I want the focal point to have the greatest contrast" and then key everything else to have less contrast than the focal point? I don't think there are any right or wrong answers to the questions. I'm really more curious about your thought process. |
