Tag: 2012

Tri-hue watercolor class, week 6: gradation critique; surfaces

Demo piece

Class started with Dick talking us through, and demonstrating, how he builds a painting as “a conversation,” responding to what he sees, unifying disjointed areas of color, “addressing issues” of unresolved [too raw; primary or secondary] color, and choosing what to leave and what to emphasize. He explores and experiments and asks, “What if?” because even with his years of experience painting, he is sometimes surprised and delighted by the magical things that can happen as he adds a new area of color.

A few solutions to the gradation exercises

We looked at student solutions to last week’s gradation exercises and talked about strategies to achieve them, and in what situations we might want to apply them.

Dick introduced the topic of “surfaces” by having us look carefully at a portion of a canvas by a Dutch Baroque painter he’d included in a handout, looking for the visual cues the artist used to tell us the nature of the surfaces in the painting. Objects act on and react to their surroundings, and accurately depicting the visual appearance of that interaction triggers tactile sensations in our brains. He mentioned another masterful depiction of surfaces, “The Floor Scrapers” by Gustave Caillebotte.

For more on these artists, see It’s about time, PubHist.com, and Wikipedia. For more on Vermeer, see Essential Vermeer and Wikipedia.

Today’s handouts are below. The homework assignment is at the bottom of the second one: “EXERCISE: Paint a simple watercolor composition which incorporates these visual phenomena.” In a few surfaces, explore the range of reflections, from dull to shiny.

[gview file=”https://dicknelsoncolor.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Surface.pdf”]

[gview file=”https://dicknelsoncolor.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Surface-QA.pdf”]

Tri-hue watercolor class, week 5: light & shadow critique; gradation strategies

Critique of last week’s exercises

Illusions of white and colored spotlights

Watercolorists have an advantage over artists in other media when it comes to shadows. Since light affects all objects in a scene equally, you can mix a single batch of color for your shadows and apply wherever needed. Dick loves using light and shadow in paintings because, “instantly, it unifies.”

Here’s the basic principle of creating the illusion of a spotlight on a surface: the shaded area contains some degree of black (that’s what defines a shade, remember?) plus the complement of the light color. So for white light, the shadow appears as a black film. For a bright light, the shadow is dark; a dimmer light would have a lighter shadow. For amber light (such as at sunset), the shadow contains blue. (In years past, artists were taught a falsehood: that the shadow of an object contains the complement of the object’s color.) Some hints came out as we reviewed which illusions were most successful:

  • You can’t just put a colored circle inside a shaded background; you need to have at least 2 reference shapes and colors in the scene so you can see how they are affected by the light and shadow. This helps its “gestalt” (see below).
  • Use a saturated color for at least one shape, because if all are left as tints, the lighted area might be read as a veil instead.

Gestalt has to do with composing your shapes so they will be perceived as you intend. For example, in the picture at left, if you want to illustrate a wire-frame cube, the lower drawing is more convincing that the top one. Symmetrical shapes will tend to be perceived more as a design than as a representation of reality. For this reason, in the picture below, the arrangement on the left is less successful, due to its near symmetry, than the one on the right, which is clearly asymmetrical.

3D still-life/landscape illuminated by ambient light and a point source

There are three sources of light on objects (and their representation in images):

  1. Ambient, which affects all objects in the scene
  2. Direct, falling from one or more light sources on some portion of the scene, and
  3. Reflected, bouncing off one or more surfaces in the scene onto other surfaces

Here again, variation in the hue and saturation of the shapes helps convey the illusion more effectively than where the shapes had similar colors or saturation.

Gradation demos

Connie and Dick demonstrated their methods (which were slightly different) for achieving a smooth color gradation. Jill captured a video of Dick’s demo:

Connie’s gradation demo

Dick’s gradation demo

Here are Connie’s helpful hints for a gradient wash in watercolor:

  1. Start wet – both sides
  2. Use the softest, biggest flat brush you have – or a huge round sable, if you have one
  3. Start with dark side and lay down several strokes of deep, saturated color
  4. Brush QUICKLY down from there with back and forth strokes down to 2/3 of your sheet – not recharging your brush with pigment
  5. Rinse out all color from brush and work from light up to maybe one half of sheet. Tip sheet so that gravity helps move pigment back and forth, being careful not to let pigment run all the way to the bottom or the lightest part of the wash.
  6. You may add pigment to top and work down again – as long as sheet is evenly wet.
  7. Dry on towel

Remember to work fast
Remember to have sheet evenly wet to begin with and pay attention to even wetness throughout.

And now for this week’s homework!

[gview file=”https://dicknelsoncolor.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/GradationStrategies.pdf”]

The homework assignment for this week is to reproduce all of the exercises on the page above, in your own choice of colors. Use 1/16 or 1/8 of a sheet for each.

Tri-hue watercolor class, week 4 follow-up

Homework for this week is exercises 5-7 on the assignment sheet from last week (Visual Phenomena & Painting Strategies): Illusion of a white spotlight; Illusion of a colored spotlight; 3D still life/landscape with cast shadow and ambient light. An example of exercise 7 in work is shown below. If you’re having trouble visualizing where the shadows should be, or how dark, it could help to observe it in nature, or set up a little model with a box and desk lamp, for example.

Also, if the discussion of last week’s exercises gave you new insight into 1-4 and you want to try any of them again for a more convincing effect, that would be great.

If you still have energy, time, and paint left over, you can continue your layering/color experiments!

Here’s the outline of a simple still-life/landscape to use for #7 so you don’t have to spend a lot of time drawing or inventing one.

[gview file=”https://dicknelsoncolor.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Still-lifeOutline.pdf”]

Tri-hue watercolor class, week 4: film, veil, & volume color critique; light & shadow

We critiqued class solutions for exercises 1-4

  1. Paint the illusion of two transparent films over a colored shape.
  2. Using the identical format to the first assignment, paint the illusion of a white veil over the original colored shapes. Think of the veil as a piece of tracing paper.
  3. Create the illusion of 4 white index cards suspended in a colored liquid.
  4. Create the illusion of colored index cards immersed in a white atmosphere.

One set of solutions is shown below. You can see some painting strategies Dick suggested during the week.

Visual phenomena: films, veils, volume color, atmospheric perspective
Visual phenomena: films, veils, volume color, atmospheric perspective

Dick introduced ways to think about next week’s assignment, exercises 5-7, with the video below.

Tri-hue watercolor class, week 3 follow-up: film & veil painting strategies

Strategies for painting films and veils, illustrated and annotated!

On the homework sheet handed out in class, “ASSIGNMENT: Visual Phenomena & Painting Strategies”, only exercises 1-4 are due for next week. Be sure to read the guidance in the top right box about planning a strategy before you start painting. Also, continue your rectangle layering experiments.

Here are Dick’s hints on strategies for Exercises 1 and 2:

[gview file=”https://dicknelsoncolor.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/WC-FILM-EXPLANATION.pdf”]

[gview file=”https://dicknelsoncolor.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/VEIL-SOLUTION.pdf”]

[gview file=”https://dicknelsoncolor.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/2-Veils.pdf”]

Here’s what to bring to class on Wednesday:

  • Homework exercises 1-4 (film, veil, volume color)
  • Any new experiments with layering rectangles
  • Paper: 1/4 sheet, a few 1/8 and/or 1/16 sheets
  • Paints, notebook, etc.
  • AND: a flash drive (thumb drive) so you can take home a copy of a tutorial movie about light, which will be of immense help for next week’s homework.

Tri-hue watercolor class, week 3: tri-hue glazing critique; introduction to visual phenomena and painting strategies

We started the third class with a critique of the homework assignments – layering rectangles, aiming for more nuanced and complex colors and interactions – “fine French cuisine”.

[gview file=”https://dicknelsoncolor.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/WC-Painting-Strategies.pdf”]

[gview file=”https://dicknelsoncolor.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/VanBoundariesWC.pdf”]

[gview file=”https://dicknelsoncolor.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/ColorReview.pdf”]

Tri-hue watercolor class, week 2 follow-up

On Oct 25, 2012, at 2:47 PM, V wrote:

Hi Karen,

I am back and ready to put my brain into “art world”.
I know it is probably impossible to repeat and explain what the class was about but could you give me a little review and direction on what we are supposed to work on for next Wednesday.

D emailed me some already and I am trying to understand it…. trying to call her but she is not home.

I was thinking if I get some info from 3 different persons, I will whether get all mixed up OR be able to put it together! Ha, ha!

Thanks,
V

D’s email:
GET FAMILIAR WITH VIMEO LESSONS – so that we are all speaking the same language. Watch them several times so that we understand them and know the vocabulary.,
* Dick told a story about his brother in WW 2 – he learned morse code and could send the signals, but at first could not understand how the receivers could read it that fast… then one day it suddenly happened and he could read it that fast too. – Analogous to how we will struggle at first, but some day it will all click.,,
* In our new exercises he does not want to see shapes made with the brush … rather shapes made by painting the negative shapes around the light areas.,,
* Count 1’s 2’s and 3’s . Colors made with 1 pigment, mixtures of 2 pigments, and mixtures of 3 pigments.,,
* Go into the painting(s) from last time and add more layers to certain parts to make vanishing boundaries and halations.,,,,
Homework Parameters:,- Make rectangles of varying sizes and saturations.,
– Make light rectangles by surrounding dark shapes.,- Create halations,
– Create vanishing boundaries ( by leaving white in yellow layer),
– Create fire-engine red and other strong hues by using high saturations of pigments,- Create light hues by low saturations,
– Build saturations across the page – sequential,
– As we are finishing up go for 90% 3’s – get many grays, greens, browns.,,,
I’ll tell you about finding “gems” by using the L shaped mat boards.

Date: 10/25/2012 4:17:45 PM
Subject: Re: Trihue week 2

D took some great notes, and I think a lot of it will make more sense once you’re able to talk to her, and especially if you’re able to get together in person so she can show you some things in her painting and yours. Are you familiar with the concepts of vanishing boundaries and halations? We spent a lot of time discussing them and finding them in TINY spaces in peoples’ paintings (using mat board Ls).

This video is 4 minutes long and focuses on luminosity created by vanishing boundaries and halations.

Here’s a screen shot from 1:43. Look at it for a few seconds, and focus on the middle color. Its right edge looks a little more green (like the left square) than the center, and its left edge looks more blue, like the right square. But it’s not a gradation, it’s one solid color, which you can see if you cover one or both of the large squares. That apparent gradation is an optical phenomenon called halation, which we can achieve in watercolors by layering.

(While we’re on the subject of the videos, make sure you also watch the color wheel one and are familiar with the terminology: hues, shades, tints, tones, values, saturation. They have precise meanings and he wants us to use them correctly when we talk about what we see.)

The assignment is basically the same as last week, except

  • You don’t need to tape off the outside after each color
  • You determine the saturation you want to use for each layer (doesn’t have to be 20 20 40 80)
  • You can go back in with magenta and cyan after you’ve already laid in all three colors (you could also go in with yellow again, but Dick warned that most yellows seem to sit on top of the other colors, so they may create a chalky or opaque appearance, instead of the transparent effect we want)

The criteria are as listed in the assignment and by D below. His main criticism of our first results was that the main ingredients (CMY) were too evident – he wants “fine French cuisine” where the flavors (colors) blend subtly. He’s looking for lots of “3s” (areas where all 3 primaries are used, in varying amounts). He wants to see more nuanced colors, like browns and grays and olives. (And also some bold ones like fire engine red, as D mentioned.) You might want to have different moods in different parts of the painting (soft, loud, earthy, …)

A clue is that you automatically get vanishing boundaries when you layer other colors over places where yellow is next to white, since the yellow is so light (you will get similar values of slightly different hues). So leave some white near your yellows. Also notice that the cyan really dominates, so you have to use a light touch with it if you want subtle!

Another big thing he’s looking for is light shapes created by surrounding dark shapes – so don’t just paint rectangles with the brush (which will always be darker than their surroundings), but look for opportunities to create light rectangles.

You can do one or more of these paintings. Bring them in next week.

I’ll send everyone a couple photos I took, which should also help you make sense of this.

Good luck, and let me know if you have any more questions!

Karen

On Oct 25, 2012, at 4:45 PM, V wrote:

One more thing, my mind has a hard time grasping this: Another big thing he’s looking for is light shapes created by surrounding dark shapes – so don’t just paint rectangles with the brush (which will always be darker than their surroundings), but look for opportunities to create light rectangles.
I think D put it this way and I had the same problem: In our new exercises he does not want to see shapes made with the brush … rather shapes made by painting the negative shapes around the light areas.,,

Does it mean that we are free to not make rectangle shapes to start with, just drop the paint and let it go where it wants but sometimes after when adding more layers… make rectangle shapes…..

Date: 10/25/2012 5:39:17 PM
Subject: Re: Trihue week 2

I think he purposely left it a little vague about exactly how to make them, to make us think about it and experiment. But I think 2 ways to do it are to paint a frame, and to paint Ls surrounding a space. (You can think of a frame as four connected rectangles, and an L as two…) He demonstrated with a little zigzag kind of thing.

I can see at least 3 light rectangles in this bit. Can you see them now? Does that help?

He wants subtle. He doesn’t want the obvious. Dark paint on a light background is obvious. Instead of using the dark paint to make me look at IT, can you use it to make me look at an area that, before I painted, was background?

And yes, for now we’re not mixing wet colors; our brushes carry only a single primary hue at a time, in varying saturations. (He rarely mixes them wet – I’ve only seen him do it rarely, near the end of a painting, when he wants a particular effect in a specific place). This is to help teach us the strategy we need to consider as we plan our painting. He wants us to think and be contemplative as we paint.

Karen

thank you again Karen. You are very very helpful. The rectangle thing hasn’t sunk in yet…. but I will let the night work it out….. it will click!

Tri-hue watercolor class, week 2

We had a long critique session, looking closely at each practice piece and making observations. At the end of class, Dick told us, “These are terrible! You’ll look back in future weeks and realize it. These show the origins too much [cyan, magenta, yellow].” And he assigned us to do it again, with new eyes, some new goals, and somewhat relaxed constraints.

We used mat board Ls to find and frame “little gems” in each piece: areas where the colors layered in complex and interesting ways, where we saw COLOR and luminosity, in the interaction in colors in halation or vanishing boundaries.