Chapter 4- Elements of Color

I began reading this chapter, thinking that I knew what was going on when I saw all the color wheels. But no! There’s a lot more to color wheels than I realized. I  didn’t know there were so many different ways to represent the color spectrum… It makes me wonder which is best? It sounds like Munsell’s color wheel is the preferred color wheel for artists, but I’m not sure. Also, I think it’s interesting that each color reaches peak chroma at different values.  I saw a three-dimensional Munsell color chart in one of my classes this last week, and thought I would love to buy one someday!! But now the more I learn, the more I wonder if it would be better to paint my own so I can understand it all better. I also love what Gurney shared about grays- more paintings fail from not having enough neutrals than too many! “Better gray than garish.” –Ingres I also learned a lot about how to handle greens well- I’ve always had trouble with them as well, so I’m glad he addressed using different shades, smuggling reds, and other methods to use greens effectively.

Chapter 3- Light and Form

Something I'm learning and trying to apply from this chapter is the concept of how light affects what we see of the form. For example, high detail and texture are most easily seen in the light and half tone areas of the form, while little texture is seen in the shadow area. I think it's natural for us to want to paint or draw the form having the same texture (because we know it's there, and maybe can see it a little) all through the form, while it would be much more striking and read more clearly if we kept high detail in the light, and left shadow areas flat. This in fact makes the form even more dimensional.

I realized as I read this chapter, that I don't pay much attention to the light source, shadow source, or other things that really do play major roles in the way light is cast on a form. Now that I've read about and seen the difference it can make, I'm excited to think more deeply about the light and shadow  sources that will affect my piece before I even jump into creating it.

Color is cool! :)

I just made a huge break-through discovery in my head painting class- you can paint a blonde woman without using yellow! ....What?! Crazy, I know. I was pretty blown away myself. :) Our teacher told us to use limited palette with only ultramarine blue, burnt sienna, and white. When our blonde model sat down in front of us, I just thought to myself- blonde. That's not going to happen today, sorry. But I went to work, making my background a cool blue in hopes that it would bring warmth to her face and hair. I experimented with the colors I had available, and although they didn't look blonde on my palette, they did in the painting!

Why? Because of color relativity. I don't know everything about it, in fact, I feel like I'm just discovering it, but it's a real thing that can make burnt sienna, white, and blue look almost yellow when they're surrounded with the right colors. Now I feel like my eyes are open to the true colors I'm seeing, as well as understanding why they look the way they do based on the warmth or coolness of the colors they are surrounded by. As an artist, I can better manipulate warms and cools in my work by focusing on the relativity of color within my piece.

Chapter 2

As I read this chapter, I was amazed at all the different light sources and their effects that I had never even considered! It was also neat for me to connect this to things I'm learning and experiencing in my current painting classes- color is so important to make a piece believable and even a small mess up in lighting can greatly affect the viewer's experience. I'm excited to study different light sources more from now on!

Color and Light- Chapter 1

I loved learning about the Old Masters' color- it's amazing to me that they were able to manipulate color so well out of so few pigments compared to what we have today! I'm sure they were able to do this only because of the deep understanding they had of each color's properties and characteristics.

In developing the science of perception, artists began to realize that colors are affected in their perception by the colors and atmosphere surrounding them. New tools such as expanded pigment palette, and collapsible paint tubes for plein air painting allowed artists to enhance their color and light.

Something I noticed in looking through the pictures (which I LOVED) is that the artists do such a great job of keeping either lights cool and shadows warm, or vice versa. It seems like such a small thing, but makes such a huge difference!