Color Relationships 2, Fall 2016 week 1

The first session of the Color Relationships 2 class for Fall 2016 was held on Wednesday, August 31. A group of 10 students met to continue their ongoing study of color, its appearance in the visual world, and how to re-create these phenomena through an understanding of color relationships. In this first session, the class went through a review of Color 1 lessons, a study of films and how they modify other colors, and discussed their first assignment. Please see the full post for class materials, including videos and slide presentations.

Color Relationships 1, Spring 2016 week 5

The fifth and final session of the Color Relationships class for Spring 2016 was held on Wednesday, May 4. The class shared the results of their last assignment, heard from guest artist Valérie about her color explorations, and watched a video that demonstrated how color, pattern, and viewing distance are all important considerations when creating a work of art. See the full post for class materials, photos, and final assignments.

Color Relationships 1, Spring 2016 week 4

The fourth session of the Color Relationships class for Spring 2016 was held on Wednesday, April 27. We critiqued the color transposition assignment, discussed the two ways to create luminosity in artwork, and enjoyed a watercolor demonstration that showed the effects of equal values, vanishing boundaries and halation. See the full post for class materials, photos, and videos to supplement our class time.

Color Relationships 1, Spring 2016 week 3

The third session of the Color Relationships class for Spring 2016 was held on Wednesday, April 20. We shared the results from the previous two homework assignments, discussed and critiqued the many examples in Josef Albers’ book Interaction of Color, and introduced the new assignment, Transposing Colors of Equal Value. This is by far the most difficult exercise in the course, and usually involves many hours of trial and error. See the full post for class materials, photos, and videos to supplement our class time.

Color Relationships 1, Spring 2016 week 1

The first session of the Color Relationships class for Spring 2016 was held on Wednesday, April 6. A new group of eleven students was introduced to new ways of thinking about color, including arrays, halation, and the primary colors of pigment (hint: it’s not the traditional red, yellow, blue!). See the full post for handouts, videos, and class materials.

Advanced Drawing and Composition 2016 week 4

The fourth session of the Advanced Drawing and Composition class for Winter 2016 was held on Wednesday, February 3. We shared and critiqued our skull drawings, discussed surface differences in more detail, and refreshed our memory on the ‘six phases of creative problem solving’. We spent a good portion of class discussing our next challenge, COMPOSITION. What is it, and why is it important? Read an excerpt, and listen to the full discussion near the end of the post.

Advanced Drawing and Composition 2016 week 3

The third session of the Advanced Drawing and Composition class for Winter 2016 was held on Wednesday, January 27. We spent time reviewing the corrected or re-drawn images from last week’s assignment, with more questions about light and shadow angles; visualizing the whole shape even when it is invisible from our vantage point; and fine-tuning your rendering technique to achieve the suggestion of form through gray values. Valérie again provided many useful videos covering these topics. The last portion of our class time was spent drawing a cow skull with our new medium, charcoal.

Advanced Drawing & Composition 2016 week 1

The first session of the Advanced Drawing and Composition class for Winter 2016 was held on Wednesday, January 13. We discussed the relationships between light and shadow, and how to use these relationships to create convincing images. Dick showed us how to plot a cast shadow using perspective, how to gauge the values of light vs. shadow, and talked about the different qualities of H and B pencils. Thanks to Valerie, this week’s summary includes almost 45 minutes of video from the class, and an additional 15 minutes of audio, providing an opportunity to (re-)experience a significant portion of the class.