| Author | Message | ||
  marie |
Thanks, Rekha. That's good to know. | ||
rekha |
marie on Monday, May 22, 2006 - 11:10 pm wrote 'Handprint used to post reflectance curves on his site, but I can't find them now' I had meant to respond to this earlier but my brain was focussed on the Hamemmat painting. http://personales.upv.es/~gbenet/teoria%20del%20color/water_color/waterfs.html On top of this page hyperlinks to colour descriptions are listed. Against the beginning of a description you will find a small colourful rectangle which is a hyperlink to the reflectance curve. He has shown the curves for selected pigment/pigment groups. Example: http://personales.upv.es/~gbenet/teoria%20del%20color/water_color/IMG/RC/rcPO20.jpg Hope this helps | ||
marie |
I just used the Type tool. | ||
rekha |
I notice marie you write that the numbering did not happen automatically in each layer and it wouldn't so did you use the Type tool for entering the numbers? | ||
rekha |
Oh, thank you marie I thought you had given up on this question. Actually, I was just on the verge of writing to a Photoshop group in order to get some answers but I am pleased you have. I can't thank you enough for all the tips and techniques you have taken the time to write about | ||
marie |
Rekha, sorry for my delay in getting back with you. I used the lasso tool and the brush tool to simplify the big masses of value. Then, I created a new layer an typed in a number for each layer. The numbering didn't happen automatically. | ||
rekha |
Marie, How do you set it up to give a numerical order on the image | ||
marie |
Hi Rekha, I did it in Photoshop. | ||
rekha |
Hi, marie. While I am trying to digest the extensive information you have provided, could you tell me how you got the numbers on the grayscale image of the beach painting. Do you have software other than Photoshop that does it or did you do this on Word and typed the numbers in. Sorry I am quite curious. | ||
maidensmith |
Rehka, thanks for the great question - and Marie, thank you for clarifying something that has been hard for me to understand! | ||
Eugene |
MARIE. You said it so well. That's why value sketches are so important. If the value sketch isn't excitng and interesting, there's no reason to go on with the paintng. We all hate to do them, but I feel that unless you are a matured, experienced artist, THEY ARE NEEDED. They really do help! | ||
Eric |
Marie, you know what you're talking about. I don't think you can ever underestimate the importance of values. | ||
rekha |
First, thank you so much for sparing your precious time for a comprehensive discussion about values. I am aware after reading several books that colour is a relative thing. From what you have described I may have unwittingly got my values ~right. Raleigh, I have been to the fettingis site and it looks good I may buy the CD. At present, marie has given me all the fodder I need for my next painting. | ||
Raliegh |
Marie, wonderful tutalage! I realized when I looked at Sargent's I didn't really look at the woman's face on the left. But the dark contrast around the face on the right pulls the eye in. www.jfettingis.com Rekha, fettingis has a CD that shows examples of values, it's a good study I recommend it. | ||
marie |
First, handprint has an striking example of why value is so important at http://www.handprint.com/HP/WCL/color11.html. He displays two modifications of a watercolor by Winslow Homer. On the first copy, he leaves the values intact but makes the colors the same -- essentially a black and white picture. On the other copy, he retains the original colors and makes all the values the same. The second copy -- with everything set to the same value -- is virtually unrecognizable. Here's another example of a Sargent watercolor. There's no way the shadow under that umbrella was bright viridian. No reflected light from the grass is going to bounce that much green into a shadow, and yet it's a very convincing image.  Now, look at it in black and white. The color is wild, but the values are right on the mark.  Hopefully, these examples will convince you of the importance of strong values. So, now the question becomes how to think in terms of value. Ultimately, you will have to resolve this question for yourself. Books and other folks can share pointers and advice, but no two people will do it exactly the same way. It's an ongoing journey. However, here are a few things that have helped me: 1) Try to arrange your painting into no more than 12 shapes of 3 or 4 values. The fewer shapes and values the better. I usually try to think of 3 values: light, middle, and dark. We recently had a Andrew Wyeth exhibit here, and I was astounded at how simple the compositions were. Even with all the details and the drybrush technique, he only used a handful of shapes. As a rule, a scene will have a lot more than 12 shapes. And sometimes you won't be able to get it down to 12 shapes. All the same, it's always good to think about how you are going to join and minimize your shapes. Here's a really quick pass at joining values in your seascape. Notice how the shadows under left umbrellas merge into a single shape.  2) The eye is going to be attracted to the area of greatest contrast, so I try to put my lightest light and my darkest dark near the center of interest. 3) I try to establish a very definite value -- sometimes a middle value and sometimes a dark value -- at the start of my painting. (And I usully try to establish this area in some place that I can adjust later if necessary. In otherwords, I rarely start off with a complex shadow shape that will look overworked if I have to go in for a second pass at the value.) Establishing a strong value up front breaks the white of the page and gives me something against which to judge all my subsequent values. You tend to see values relative to other values, and if the only value you have to compare to is white, then it's easy to misjudge a value. You'll think something is a nice, middle value, and then you realize later in the painting that it is actually very light. (Does this make any sense?) I could keep talking about this for a while. Is any of this helping? | ||
rekha |
'when I think through the values carefully, the color tends to take care of itself' This statement is full of meaning I don't understand yet. If you take this example can you think aloud and write it out so that I can figure out how an artist thinks about values translated to colours. 'What blues are you using' On Donna's suggestion I used Winsor blue to make very effective sea green in the background with winsor green; aureolin added to these gave me the blues in the foreground. I am reasonably pleased with this. I was just getting impatient waiting, so I tried the prussian blue + yellow ochre.  | ||
marie |
Hi Rekha, the painting is looking good. As for suggestions for the land in the background ... I would probably repeat some of the pigments you are already using. Maybe try some of the same mixture that you used for the shadows on the umbrellas. What blues are you using other than prussian blue? The challenge will be to figure out what value you want in the background. I would certainly reserve the buildings and the rocks as white. I'm less sure about what to do with the mountains. The sky and the water are about the same value in the painting, so you will want the background land to be either lighter or darker than the sky/water. How much lighter or darker depends on where you want the eye to go. Do you want the emphasis to be on the umbrellas or the area in the background? I have found out that when I think through the values carefully, the color tends to take care of itself. | ||
rekha |
not having much luck uploading  | ||
rekha |
Here's my painting not yet finished; the photograph is very dark on the left  . I want ruthless critique I also want to know how I can get the greens on the hills. I have tried Prussian blue + yellow ochre but don't get the faint effect as one sees forms in the distant | ||
rekha |
Here's my painting not yet finished; the photograph is very dark on the left . I want ruthless critique I also want to know how I can get the greens on the hills. I have tried Prussian blue + yellow ochre but don't get the faint effect as one sees forms in the distant | ||
rekha |
I have realised, Donna, that you are the person I meant to acknowledge for reds in blues. My apologies for this unwitting mistake. | ||
Joanna |
Maybe Donna is into something with the Holbein Peacock, but I think it is also a convenience mix of phthalo and something else. Still, the phthalos are either greenish or bluish; Daniel Smith sells a red version of this and a greenish version of it. That photo of the ocean is a wonderful shade: we noticed it ourselves (or a lighter version) in Rehoboth Beach last week. I was giving a seminar there, and our room at the hotel had an ocean view. The color was VASTLY different than the ocean's light in New England; it was more blue, just as the Caribbean is that terrific turquoise. The light changed minute by minute in the evening till it was a steely aquamarine. Naturally, we were looking at reflected sky light mixed with the sands beneath and the bluish tone of natural water (water does actually throw off blue light and absorb red strongly, if I remember my chemistry. ) Anyway, it was gorgeous and utterly ineffable, meaning hard to reproduce. | ||
Rekha |
Marie, Hilary Pages' Guide to Watercolor Paints has the reflectance curves for a family of colours. | ||
marie |
Somebody else recommended the combination of thalo green and thalo blue. Sorry I can't take credit for it. Actually, I didn't post the info about which blue/green pigments contain red either, but I may be able to shed some light on the thinking behind the post. Every pigment reflects light from different parts of the spectrum. Very neutral pigments, such as black or raw umber, reflect fairly even amounts of spectral colors -- violet, red, orange, yellow, green, and blue. With brighter pigments, it can be more difficult to tell with the naked eye exactly what colors are being reflected. The reflectance curves are usually measured with a spectrophotometer. Studying the reflectance curves can be useful in predicting how colors will mix (although probably not as useful as lots of practice with a brush). I find reflectance curves most useful to figure out which combinations of pigments will give me good, strong darks. Handprint used to post reflectance curves on his site, but I can't find them now. If you are interested in knowing more, the best source I know is Ralph Mayer's Artist's Handbook of Materials and Techniques. The Mayer book, by the way, is worth having, even if you're not interested in reflectance curves. The irony of it all is that Prussian blue doesn't reflect any more red that thalo blue does. Prussian blue does, however, reflect considerably more yellow and orange than thalo blue. Convenience mixes, such as hooker's green or sap green, will almost always have flatter curves than single pigments because the curves will be the sum or the curves of all the pigments in the paint. | ||
Rekha |
I have tried that unsuccessfully, Joanna. I can see Marie's rational; if you look at the colour wheel you can see why she recommended winsor blue and green and it works but I don't understand where Marie got the information about its red contents. I have looked at Hilary Page's book about watercolour paints and I don't see it. | ||
Joanna |
what about Cobalt Turquoise... | ||
Rekha |
Bingo, Marie, but could you explain to me for future reference how you established that the greens have red in them. I say this because I have the cie layout of colours; perhaps the cie is not so useful. | ||
Rekha |
Yes, Marie I do have winsor blue and winsor green so I'll play with that. | ||
Donna |
Rekha, I don't think you will get that sea green color with Prussian, Antwerp, or Hooker's. They all have red in them, which will make it brownish. Stay with Phthalo and a true blue..... like Holbein's Peacock or Winsor Blue. Peacock is a great color to mix water or sky colors. I use Winsor Green which is like phthalo. | ||
Rekha |
I see that you are suggesting mid- and true- blue range to be mixed; I thought wrong that I could achieve it with true green + midrange blue. I'll try it later this evening, not the best time but it's a wet and thundery afternoon here anyway so the light isn't going to change. Meanwhile, I will also wait to hear how you got it. | ||
marie |
Rekha, I would have to tinker with it for a while to get a good answer. (I don't have any experience doing ocean scenes.) I'm kind of thinking that you might want to start off with a blue that leans toward cyan and then add some variations from there. Holbein's Peacock blue (PB17) comes to mind as a good choice. I might also experiment with Cobalt Teal Blue (PG50) or thalo turquoise (PB16). If you are trying to reproduce the colors and values of the water in the photograph, I would add some violet or rose in the foreground and some lemon/primary yellow toward the back. Cerulean will probably work okay, too, although -- depending on the brand you use -- you will probably need to mix in a darker blue (thalo or prussian) to get a better value range. I would stay away from thalo green and hookers green. | ||
Rekha |
I have tried unsucessfully several combinations of phthalo green ys,, hooker's green, antwerrp blue, prussian blue to get the sea green colour as in the attached photo  . Can someone help here? |
