Color Interaction Studies
Josef Albers’s Interaction of Colors explains how colors interact with each other and can trick the eye into seeing a different color than what is being presented.
Digital Studies. when three colors become 4.
Painting of a Digital Study
I find it difficult to mix paint shades. It is about practice and mixing colors to find the right shades and hues. Who knew yellow and black make a weird green? I downloaded the App Hueduko and am training my eyes and brain with color mixes. The first half of this course (FIN 120) I did a lot of collage. My hands have a tremor and my painting can look messy. This term I will practice painting straight lines, or just accept and integrate into my ‘style’.
Expanded Study
Simulated Transparencies
I usually paint in wax, so the transparency is built into the media. Having to mix hue to mimic was challenging for me.
Transparencies:Simulated and Actual
Glass Still Life
Moving into unknown territory has increased my stress levels. This is resulting in near breakdown and crying during the class. I am fortunate that the Instructor Scott and my classmates are aware and supportive of my situation. First time ever doing a grey painterly sketch on the canvas. I usually take hours to figure my drawing out and getting it painted. I will NOT let painting class defeat me! Instructor Scott was kind and supportive. I calmed down and just went for it. I am here to learn after all. Not my greatest work visually, but mentally, I won this round! I feel I did manage to capture some distortion of the objects within the glass. Looking at my composition I can see where my brain had just shut off with that concept. I was so stressed getting the painting sketch on that paper. I have to practice my mindfulness and get this stress off being in the classroom painting under control. A better composition for this painting would be to lower the still life down more towards the bottom and have more green space above the items, or, frame it in a square frame.
Working with glazes
I enjoyed working with the glazes and a grey underpainting. I was able to let go during the duration of this painting and had a lot of fun. I did find the glazes to become sticky during the process. *Note: This painting was done at home with me all alone except the dog snoring on the rug. No disruptions or stress.
Earth Tones and Skin Studies
I have never painted skin tones in my life. With the introduction of Burnt Sienna, Burnt Umber, and Yellow Oxide to my pallet I went in for a deep dive. We had to look at our hand and paint what we see. Feeling that stress welling up, I pushed it back down and just decided I would mix the new earth tones and paint squares on a piece of paper. I spent about an hour just trying out combinations of colors. Then I jumped in and quickly sketched out my hand shape in gray paint. I learned that shadows can make things way more interesting and provides tone and color shifts. I found it absorbing to look so deep into my skin. Skin tones are many layers and overlaps. End of class I was considering throwing it away and starting over at home. Instructor Scott encouraged me to continue on with it and not give up. I started in with the blues and the reds and some purple. Looking at the finished painting my mind just wants to discount it because my hand proportions are off. Pushing past that, I like what I painted and was excited to start my next study. My daughter is a powerlifter and I took a picture of her knee. Talk about strange proportions! I had fun painting in the tones. The shadows on the right provided me a challenge. After I was done, I painted in the green background. It made my painting pop.
Painting of Hand
Painting of a Knee
Self Portrait
I am ready to attempt my self portrait. I did a sketch and had an idea about fractal planes. I asked Instructor Scott if it was okay to do something of that nature. He said yes, and gave me some tips about finding the shadows and filling in color blocks on my underpainting. I used a grid system and drew in my outlines with pencil. I just wasn’t confident enough to do the painterly outline sketch.
I chose to use purple as my underpainting. I felt very hesitant to start, so I did the dark purple tone first. Then I kept adding white to lighten up the paint. I liked how it looked all in monochromatic purple hues.
Now to start the overpainting. It does feel like I am painting this twice. I see the benefits as you can just paint over areas you do not like. I thought it best to start with the light colors first. Using a mix of white and Burnt Sienna I added in the light highlight spots first. I mixed up a fair amount of this lighter color. I used it as a base for adding my other mixtures to it. Yellow Oxide and Burnt Umber were introduced as well as black and white. I started filling in the face planes with color. I used more red in my face and Yellow in my hair. I tried to keep the purple underpainting peaking out in areas. For the dark areas of my hat and chest I used black mixed with blue. The constellation Orion is represented over my chest. Things are starting to take shape. Then…I painted blue eyeliner around my eyes. Yikes! Flashback to grade 7 attempts at makeup with liquid blue eyeshadow. My eyes are over dominating everything. I will have to tone them down or do something…
I lightened the paint a bit around my eyes. I had to add something else to tie that blue in. I outlined my hat and face in a lighter blue, and brought in blue streaks around my glasses. Using the glazing medium, I also tinted that blue and painted that around the shadow areas of my face and behind my glasses. It is looking better but still needs more blue. Using green tape, I created a small border around my painting. This was painted blue. It help frame and ground everything within the painting. Something was still missing. Too much dark empty space under my face. Out came the green tape and some little boxes were made.
I painted them a tan color similar to my lips. Script was added into the boxes. Now I feel my painting is done and ready for tomorrow mornings critique.
Critique Day
I hung my painting up on the wall with everyone else. It was fantastic to see it with all the other styles. Class mates and the Instructor Scott all said very positive things about my painting. I left the class feeling like “Yes, I can do this.”
