"Color Matters"

On one of this website's links, it brings up the idea that a color can change its appearance depending on the other color(s) it is near. For instance, red may look bright and vibrant beside black or blue while appearing to be more dull next to white or orange. This brought to mind the idea of how each person seems to have a color or a couple of colors that they feel complements them best, whether based on skin tone, hair color, eye color etc. In addition this idea of color may also explain why some people are uncertain of their eye color. One day their eyes may appear green, another blue and yet another grey, all due to the color of clothing they are wearing. I just found this idea to be intriguing and something that I think would be kind of fun to experiment with.

Color Matters

Color Wheel

Lesson 2: Color

Color has a much stronger affect on us than we may consciously realize. Each and every color can evoke some kind of feeling or emotion. A change in the saturation of a color is one way of altering the emotion a color may represent. Even the juxtaposition of multiple colors can vary the mood it creates. Colors have a similar affect on people world wide, but when associations are brought into play, meanings of color begin to vary from person to person. Location of where one lives and experiences one goes through can all change one's perspective on color. As it is now more clearly seen, color can be a powerful tool when it comes to art. Artist have the chance to strategically use color to their advantage to convey the emotion, or message they are trying to unveil.

Theory of Color

This is a photo of my painting on display at our critque. It was helpful seeing it in a cleaner and less distracting setting. It also allowed me to see it  from a far, which brought with it a chance of reflection on elements that worked and elements that were weak. Like what was observed in many of my fellow classmates pieces, compositionally, the folds in the cloth seemed to provide as a good tool to lead viewers eyes around the piece. An area of weakness is the close tonal value between the pears and the cloth causing the pears to get lost in the painting, even though they are  the largest of the subjects. Lightening the pears up was a good suggestion for an area of improvement, so that viewers could better identify these subjects and not have to key into some of the details such as the stems for identification.

Stage 3 Value Painting: Pears and Cherries

I spent more time refining the gradual and the not so gradual value changes of the fruit and cloth. To my surprise while doing this, I found it most difficult to capture the cherries waxy appearance. It may have been because although they did have a much more drastic value change, including some of the deepest blacks and the brightest whites, there were also some values in between that were sometimes difficult to spot or decipher. Finally, I went in with a finer brush and added the stems, again paying attention to light.

Stage 2 Value Painting: Pears and Cherries

At this stage I am still in the process of adding in all of the shadows and highlights. Marks are visible, since I have not yet blended them in.

Stage 1 Value Painting: Pears and Cherries

We began practice 1 of painting today using black and white oil paint to begin our focus on value. We began our process by first applying a grey foundation coat to the entire canvas, then outlining our major lines in black paint, and finally giving each subject an initial tonal value. After the major subjects were in place, the next step was to add dimensionality to the objects by bringing in shadows and highlights. This is the step where my piece is at now. I started the process of shading by spending much time looking back and forth from my still life to my canvas to see where the light is landing on the objects and where light is being blocked from. It was very easy for me to get enthralled in painting. It was quite relaxing and exciting as images started to gain shape.