Color

Review of Step 1 thru Step 4

Step1: Imprimatura (thin light sienna underpainting to tone canvas)
Step2: Establish drawing (via Macchia or line drawing -- establish basic shapes)



Step3: with thin paint, underpaint the dark areas



Step4: with thicker paint, block in dark areas, then the light areas, using "spots" of color. While applying these dabs of color, check for correct values and hue. You may want to use one of the color harmonies we studied:

American Verismo class

Class Poster

Session One

Dinner and Discussion

(see "EVENTS")

Anatomy Class 4-8-09

Welcome to Class:


In this class we will consider anatomy with an emphasis on painting the figure or groups of figures with correct anatomy and proportions.

Major Concepts:

• I have been painting for quite a while but most recently have been working with a burnt sienna or burnt umber ground.




• I prefer to work from life but can also work from photos as needed.




• Students need to "see" with their artistic "third eye" and interpret what they see through "near and far" poetry, their aesthetic sense, and their spirituality.




• We will use traditional procedures that have existed from the Renaissance which include study of proportions, measurement, use of grids, triangulation and angles, and locating key landmarks.




• Begin with placement of the large shapes, quickly establishing the "macchia" or “gestalt” of the figure using a big brush and burnt sienna. Work on paper or canvas. By doing so one can establish the gesture, the composition, and the placement at the very beginning.




• Students should then use a process of working from general gesture to more specific contours, lines, shapes, and values.




• Always keep the whole work in mind by working on all areas simultaneously and never finishing one part while neglecting another.




• Students can try working in reverse by lifting lighter tones out of the darker tones.




• This helps greatly in discovering the largest shapes and controlling the edges of the contours.

Last Week of Class:

Last Class:

What we talked about: It was the last class so the lecture was short: mostly about brushwork, the need to start with a bigger brush and to change to a medium and then to a small brush later.

We talked about looking for opportunities to use mass, line, and point elements and not to rely exclusively on just one element. We talked about working thin to fat -- pu in your darks with thinner paint and to use a lot of paint (impasto) for the lights.

Student work:





























Congratulations class! You did it!
Hopefully see you in the Spring class.


"La Donna2" oil on wood, 2008


"Girl with Berries" oil/canvas 2008

Direct Painting

Direct painting means to begin and complete a portrait with minimal drawing.

Alla prima (direct painting wet into wet) is a method of direct painting in a single paint layer usually on a white ground.

Instead of spending a lot of time drawing and detailing a mass or value "macchia" then doing additional refinement through more careful drawing, one develops "on the fly" a color "macchia" or pattern, sculpting the head's form and features through direct application of paint.

Each stroke of the brush imparts both value and hue simultaneously and has to be correct.

If incorrect, it must be immediately scraped off and re-applied. Paint directly and quickly.

The most famous proponent of this method was John Singer Sargent. But many of the renouned masters of portraiture used this method to some degree, especially Fran Hals and Rembrandt.



Reference

Back to Color in Portraiture

This week we will return to the subject of color mixing for portraiture:


Sorry but time did not allow for me to write much.

We discussed the Munsell color wheel and various harmonies: primary, secondary, etc.



The Munsell system has three dimensions: vertical(value), circumference(hue), and diameter (saturation).

There was a comment in class that the Munsell system did not have orange. Whoever said this was mistaken. As you can see below organge is still a secondary color in the munsell system. However, "orange" is labeled YR (yellow-red) in the Munsell system.

Painting Portrait Features

This week we will concentrate on painting portrait features such as eyes, ears, and mouth.

These features give your painting a finished look even if the overall portrait is painted in a spontaneous manner:



The Ear

The ear can be described as having the shape of the letter "C" with an "S" shape forming the interior of the ear. The two letters face in opposite directions from one another. On the left side the "C" faces backward and the "S" faces in the normal direction while on the right side the "C" faces in the normal direction and the "S" appears to face backwards:

New York Times Anatomy Image of the Ear:

After making the initial "C" and "S" shapes, look for the halftones needed to make the ear appear more natural:


The Eye




To paint the eye, begin by painting a shape that approximates the eye socket with a number six grey or sienna. Paint the iris by twirling the brush using ivory black or a very dark sienna (sienna plus ultra blue). Tone the eyeball area between the lids in a graduated fashion to make the eye ball look round. Paint the heavy dark crease above the upper lid. Paint the lower lid from the corner of the eye down and around to the tear duct corner of the eye (closer to the nose) and paint a a dark dab in the corner. Paint the upper lid using a number 3 value. Slightly cover the black circle of the iris.