Mind Blown

Recently, I finished reading Get The Picture by Bianca Bosker and several pages towards the end  completely blew my mind in the best way possible.  Big picture, all of it relates to the idea of color constancy.  It's easier for me to just share a clip from Wikipedia to explain it.

"Color constancy is an example of subjective constancy and a feature of the human color perception system which ensures that the perceived color of objects remains relatively constant under varying illumination conditions. A green apple for instance looks green to us at midday, when the main illumination is white sunlight, and also at sunset, when the main illumination is red. This helps us identify objects."

In the book, an example is given related to Claude Monet and his paintings of Rouen Cathedral at different times of day.  In one of his renditions, it's a painting from the morning and the stone masonry is painted dark blue.  The book explains this was not artistic license, but probably came from Monet's ability to be able to override his brain's color constancy mechanisms and that there are people who can do this.  Mostly artists.  The scientist that the author was talking to thought that artists have the capability to switch this ability on when they want.  

This was at the end of several pages where it talked both about how miraculous our vision is in how it can make sense of things, but then it went into how our vision gets filtered and constrained by expectations.  

It also made me immediately thing of an early painting of Hammett.  I am sure that I posted about this one, but I can't find it in my blog and I didn't put the date of the painting on the back.  Darn.  Anyway, here is the finished piece from long, long ago.

My guess is that this was from the 2nd set of painting classes that I took from Kat.  One week, we used tracing paper for the image and this was the painting that I did.  While working on it in class, I got stumped on the colors and I remember Kat coming over and asking me what colors did I see in the shadowed areas of his face.  She was very patient, because I had to look for quite some time because I just couldn't see what color it was.  At some point, it's like a veil lifted and I could see a color, but I didn't believe it.  Finally, I muttered in a questioning tone "purple"?  

Even when I said it I still didn't quite believe it.  While the inside of his ears frequently are a light pink or purple, I've looked at this cat a lot in real life and I've never seen purple.  If there was such a thing as a cat with purple fur (naturally not dyed), I am quite certain that I would want one.

I wasn't blogging much when I took the most recent set of painting classes with Kat at the beginning of last year, but another interesting thing happened with seeing color.  When we were painting oranges, I suddenly became aware of or could finally see the color of the shadow that bounced back up on the orange.  If I put the orange on a blue piece of paper I could see the blue that bounced back up on the orange on the dark side of the orange.  I remember feeling slightly bit giddy about this, plus it was so much fun to paint these crazy color shadows.  I really do wish I was actively blogging when it happened, but I still remember the feeling.   

Both of these are strong memories and it's interesting to have a little better idea of what happened and why it's been so hard in the first place. 

I know artists can just geek around color and it works if you get the values right, but I also think a lot of the time they are just seeing more than the average person.  

All of this is fascinating.  

Current Direction

What have I been up to, creatively?  I’ve taken two classes at Wet Paint that were both quite good and interesting in their own way.  One was about haptic drawing.  I can’t say that I “get it”, but I want to both explore my mark making when drawing and also the mindfulness component of it.  The mark making comes from the realization that I mostly do not like the lines that I draw, so I want to explore mark making and expand my mark making vocabulary.  After this class, I thought I’d start a practice of doing several of these per week and thought it would be an easy way to keep up a creative habit during a time of being busy, but that’s not how it went.  

I also took a two session class with Monica Fogg about color.  I got some good food for thought from this class.  In applying that, we did some studies of a simple scene where the point was not the scene, to make anything pretty, or to finish anything at all.  The point was to explore the impact of color in a somewhat structured way.  The exercise is somewhat mechanical, but Monica said (and it makes a lot of sense to me) that continuing to explore this scene in different ways with the things she taught will help with making better, or perhaps more deliberate, choices down the road.  

Here’s one of the studies using complementary colors and with a muted/low chroma and a scarcity of some high chroma.  In class, everyone else was using watercolors, but I don’t have the experience with those, so I used Neocolor II crayons.

Throughout the month and after the 2nd class last week, I just got too busy and was too tired to do much creatively.  That’s mostly due to the demands of work and that should start to let up a bit in a couple of weeks.  This has also impacted my gardening, since I’ve got seeds to start where it should have been better to start them several weeks ago and I really do want to get lettuce planted outside. 

On Thursday night, I was so fried that I didn’t even feel like myself, which is a horrible way to feel.  I went down to my art corner in the basement and just played.  I did that again last night.  I started to play around with watercolor, which normally would have been a terrible idea since I really don’t know what I’m doing but instead I had fun and it did help to cleanse my brain. 

This morning, I went down to explore roundish things with watercolor.  The orange was first.  Next up was the apple.  The pear was last.  I should have quit before I started the pear, since I was getting tired and I think that shows.  It’s a challenging medium, but I had fun exploring.  

I need to use less water and I also need to use more patience!

For the next several weeks, I think I want to work on some more color schemes and also to play with watercolor.  Maybe, I’ll also try to do several haptic drawings. 

Some Second Layers

 I haven't been writing. I've been off experimenting.

I've been job hunting.

I've also been painting the stairwell and stairwell ceiling (with white on the ceiling and only one color on the walls, in case you are wondering).

I've still never met a bright color that I don't like The following one is actually brighter in person.  The other interesting thing is that the above one is hansa yellow opaque as the first layer with quin magenta on top, while this one reversed the order of the colors. You can also see that I used different techniques, but even so the difference is interesting.

I am toning some of the colors down or at least adding some areas which are more neutralized. This one is actually a first layer.

I am loving the excuse to play with color.  I have made a pledge to myself that these are not precious. They are to be used. I can always make more.

A Little More Joy

 Given the news of the death of RBG, I am extra glad to have Roz's class. I need color and I need an excuse to play. 

Here are some new experiments with a toothbrush and a spray bottle. I have a tendency to use too much water. At the same time that I was coming to this realization, Roz had a post on her blog about this very subject. 

The first 3 times I played with the toothbrush and spray bottle, I used way too much water. The 4 time worked better. All of these were on 5" x 7" pieces of paper.

The 5th time was even better. I still think I could have waited for the initial marks had dried a bit more and could have used a bit less water from the spray bottle, but that is something to revisit later since tomorrow the videos drop for the 2nd week of class.

Here's one other 1st layer from earlier in the week. When I can be patient and wait for things to dry, sometimes too much water is a good thing. It doesn't show up as well in the photo, but this one has a really cool frosted effect. 

Lots and Lots of Oranges

Orange cats are a frequent painting subject and I've noticed that I dull down my oranges too much. As a result, I decided to paint a bunch of different shades of orange. All were painted with Hansa Yellow Opaque, Quinacridone Magenta, and Titanium White.

The top set was one layer of paint. The following are notes which relate to the numbered swatches.

1. Mix of yellow and magenta. No white added. It's too dark. Plus, it could also use some white  to make it more opaque. The rest of the swatches in the 1st and second row are all a mix of yellow, magenta, and white.
2. These swatches are too yellow, so that I see this as a yellow-orange rather than orange.
3. These are muted with a little Phthalo Blue Red Shade. Ugh. This makes a dull, muted color, so why do I tend to add a little of this color when I am painting my orange cats. Must stop!
4. Same as #3, except the additional color was Phthalo Blue Green Shade. Ugh, again.
5. I tried to finish with a really great orange color in one layer. 

Having failed to get a really great orange color in one layer, I did experiment #2. Each row has one layer of the same color. The left column shows the original, one-layer color. In the middle and right column, a second layer of paint was added after the first one dried. The same light color orange was used as the top layer in the middle column and the same darker orange was used as a top layer in the right column.     

It was surprising to see that the top layer of paint in the middle and right column was so dominant that the underneath layer didn't matter much. My guess is that this is because there was Titanium White in both of the oranges in the top layer.

Lessons learned:

• I really do need two layers of paint to get a vivid orange.
• The top layer is the one which really matters. 

Wish / Hope:

• I hope all of this helps me to stop dulling my oranges. 

Early Thoughts On New Paint Colors

A tiny dab of Yellow Ochre has take up residence on my palette. If I use tiny bits of it when I am mixing yellows, oranges, or reds, it helps me make darker colors. My theory for this is that it is such an opaque color. Usually, I have to mix in some Titanium White, which is also very opaque, but also makes colors lighter. With Titanium White, I think I use too much, so I get opacity, but I also get too much lightness. For other colors, especially blue, I don’t think I use enough Titanium White when I need a lighter shade.

Here are some sample mixes of my new colors, Diarylide Yellow, Pyrrole Red Light and Yellow Ochre . On the bottom row on the left is the "pure" color. Next is the color mixed with some Titanium White. After that is the new color and my current palette color (eithe Hansa Yellow Opaque or Quin Magneta) for the first two colors. Since I’ve already been mixing with Yellow Ochre, I skipped this “test” for this color. In the next row up, I experimented with mixing greens using Phthalo Blue GS and purples with Phthalo Blue RS and the new color, with both a darker and lighter version. Above that, I used Ultramarine Blue in the mixes.

None of the greens or purples really speak to me. It was hard to get something which looked green on the palette. When I painted with these colors, they were on the yellow side and too light. The purples are hideous, which makes sense since Pyrrole Red Light is an orangey-red. The  most interesting mix was the mix of Pyrrole Red Light and Quin Magenta.

I am still going to experiment, since these new colors could be useful in mixing colors for shadows or landscapes. Also, branching out into new paint colors from time to time helps me understand my current palette better.

A Good Ending To A Busy Work Week

I mostly kept up my painting habit last week. It was both an accomplishment and a giant compromise. Most mornings before work, I spent only 2 minutes or so drawing out my next painting. I didn't do so well on the drawing front.

Friday, I got a break from the daily grind. I finished my morning work for a client early and had 1 1/2  hours free before my afternoon client work. One of the things I did with this bonus time was go to Wet Paint, since it's time to play with some new colors. Wet Paint is in the midst of the their back-to-school sale, so Golden Heavy Body Acrylics are 40% off. I don't recall how this compares to their usual price, but it was a good enough reason to stop in.

Meet my new additions.

I haven't decided if I will rotate them in, start another palette or what. I decided to purchase the Diarylide Yellow when I saw some paintings of another one of Kat's students. This student refered to it as "school bus yellow". While I will always have Quin Magenta in my palette, I decided that I would like to play with a red which is closer to orange. Being messy, I stayed away from any of the Cadmiums and went with Pyrrole Red Light. Based upon Patti Mollica's book, I purchased the Yellow Ochre to have a mineral or earth pigment to play and see what happens.

On Friday night, I did a quick value sketch and worked on the painting. The value sketch helped me slow down and tune into the value shapes. On Saturday, I finished up the eyes and whiskers. Since I was painting one of my orange cats, I added a tiny dab of the Yellow Ochre to my palette. It helped me get some orange-yellow colors which look closer to life without being muddy and made it easier to get some of the darker shades I wanted. Using a little bit in the purples, neutralized the purple without making them boring.

So many times I get overly fussy trying to get the right eye color, so I end up with multiple layers of paint in the eyes. This time, I was able to focus on the values and whether the color was clearer or muddy and just went with that. I must remember this in the future!

#255 - Chandler At Twighlight - 8" x 8" - paper

The background, whiskers, and eyebrows add nothing. I don't think the whiskers or eyebrows are needed at all. Even so, I really like this painting.

Value Cat

Yesterday, I took some additional time and started and finished a painting in one sitting. I haven't been doing that. My self-imposed assignment was to focus on the values and the shapes. Rather than sticking to one color, I went with one color for the cat, one color for the blanket, and one color for the eyes.

#188 - Dorian Value Study - 5" x 7"- paper - standard palette

It just amazes me how well the suggested eye reads any time I've tried something like this. 

Also, I switched my standard palette today. My official yellow is now hansa yellow opaque. Since I haven't used this color with pthalo blue red shade before, it did make mixing grays interesting today. 

Bully On The Playground And Other Thoughts About Color

Where did the last 1 1/2 weeks go?  It doesn't seem as though that much time has past since my last post.  Last weekend was devoted to the MONDO juggling & unicycle festival.  I've also been taking some time to watch the Olympics in the evening, but still the last 1 1/2 weeks flew by.

Since my last post, I finished up the deer painting.  This is the second painting from the same picture.  The last time was almost a year ago.

#184 - Deer In Woods - 5" x 7" - paper - alternative palette

I also fussed with a painting a pansy in a pot.  I am a bit sentimental about this picture, since I grew the flower from seed. I've painted from this picture before.  The most recent time was three months ago.  The time before that was more than a year ago. 

#185 - Pansy In Pot - 6" x 6" hardboard - std palette

Fussed is the accurate word for this one, especially with the flower.  I struggle whenever I want a "purer" yellow or orange that is saturated. So I paint and I paint over and I paint over and I don't like the end result. When I'm doing the tawny oranges of the orange cats, I've got blue mixed in to help give the color strength.

This time, I sat back and realized I used my standard palette.  My standard palette consists of primary yellow, titanium white, quinacridone magenta, pthalo blue green shade, and pthalo blue red shade.  My alternative palette replaces the yellow with hansa yellow opaque and the red shade of blue with ultramarine blue.  While I've been painting with both palettes and noticing the differences, I haven't really thought about it in a focused way.

Meet my two different yellow colors.

The difference in strength is apparent.  The top row is "pure" color not toned down with white at all.  The hansa yellow opaque was a little dry on my palette, so it went on heavier than usual.  I compensated by doing two layers of paint for the primary yellow and the primary yellow still could not keep up.  While I am willing to concede that part of my problem is skill and experience, I am a little tired of fighting with my yellow paint.  On the back of the paint tubes, the difference in these two yellows is in the opacity and tinting strength and hansa yellow opaque is stronger in both categories.  

I also decided to compare my blue paint.  

I have enjoyed using the ultramarine blue.  It's easier for me to use and I figured out why.  Pthalo blue red shade is the playground bully on my palette.  It's the middle color. In the top row, it's pretty darn close to being the same value as the black gesso.  While the other two blues are dark, they aren't quite as dark and enveloping as pthalo blue red shade.

Since I've only recently figured out that I need to use a lot more white paint with all of my paint colors, it's no wonder that I let pthalo blue red shade dominate. This should be an easy bully to tame.  

In comparing the blue paint side by side, I noticed something else.  I like how the two pthalos related to each other.  They compliment each other in a pleasing way.  I don't find that when I look at ultramarine blue and pthalo blue green shade.  I'm not sure it makes that much difference in color harmony when using a limited color palette, but for now it's a reason to stick with pthalo blue red shade. 

Once I'm done with the primary yellow on my main palette, the refill is going to be with hansa yellow opaque.  I think I'll keep my alternative palette going and it will have primary yellow and ultramarine blue. 

This morning, I started a new pansy painting with my alternative palette, so I could see if the flower colors improved.  I think they did, although I still needed more than one layer of color. I'm still a long way from painting a flower with lyrical paint strokes, but trying is easier with the stronger yellow. 

Watercolor!

I am really enjoying Liz Steel's online course, Watercolour.  At the same time, I am trying to keep up with drawing and acrylic painting, which left very little blog time last week. 

Here is one of the first exercises from the course which involved doing a big swatch of your colors in a watery mix, a juicy mix, and a pasty mix. 

We were encouraged to stick with the colors we have, otherwise I would be making some changes!  I did two swatches of Quin Magenta. That's not true of the yellow swatches in the top right corner. Those are two different paint colors, but they are not very distinct from one another. Also, I have a black color and a very dark green, so I probably only need one really dark color.

In a different exercise, we tested the opacity of each color. It turns out the whitish color is the most opaque. I love the different things you can learn about color!

Rescued, Mostly

This one did not have a good start. Several months ago, I would have left it half-finished, but I am trying to push myself a bit more. I put this aside on Saturday, but returned to it on Sunday, Monday and today. My goal was to rescue it from something that I would not post on the blog to something that I would. The face angles of the face and overall shape are still a bit off, but it feels like I rescued it, mostly. Trying to go further with it would have changed the experience from learning to joyless.

#150 - Cat - 6" x 6" - paper - palette with alternative blue

My alternative blue, ultramarine blue (#1400), is not as opaque as my usual color, phthalo blue red shade (#1260). This should not be a surprise, since the back of each tube of Golden Heavy Body Acrylic paint shows several key features about the paint color. One of  these is the transparency versus opacity of the color. Still, there is a vast difference between reading the back of a paint tube and experiential learning. This experience is giving me a new understanding of transparency and opacity and what that means when you mix colors together.

Feeling Good

I have been thinking about how to better use the time that I have to paint and why I procrastinate. Two problems are deciding what to paint and trying to paint after I've either had a "breakthrough" or finished something that I really like. The worst is when both of these things happen at the same time. I realized that my own behavior makes this happen more than necessary, since I frequently will push to finish up a painting in the evening. That leaves me with nothing in process the next day, which can start the procrastination cycle. Last month deciding to paint cats, cats, and more cats made the decision making easier and I found that I painted more.

The solution is to never finish a piece at the end of my "art time" on any given day. If I do finish, I need to leave enough time to choose the next subject and start drawing it. I've been trying this the last several days and it feels good. It feeds into the ideal that painting is a process. There is no true beginning or end and any work on any given day does not matter. Continuing the process and feeding it is what matters.

I really enjoyed painting cats last month, but have felt the need to stretch myself this month. My current plan is to have two paintings going at the same time. One will be complicated, such as a landscape or which contains multiple objects, and one will be simple.

I've also decided to branch out and test drive several new colors. I made myself a little crazy, since it felt like I was being unfaithful to my existing colors, especially since I like my palette. They are good paint colors and I'm learning how to use them. I use the following Golden Heavy Body Acrylics:

• Titanium White #1380
• Quinacridone Magenta #1305
• Phthalo Blue (Green Shade) #1255
• Phthalo Blue (Red Shade) #1260
• Primary Yellow #1530

Still, I thought it would be fun to experiment with several new colors. While Wet Paint had my brand on sale, I decided to buy a small tube of:

• Hansa Yellow Opaque #1191
• Ultramarine Blue #1400

Since I have two of the same palette, I'm keeping my original colors in one palette. In the other palette, I swapped out the Phthalo Blue (Red Shade) for the Ultramarine Blue. I'm marking my paintings so I know which palette I used. Plus, I am going to use this as an excuse to paint some of the same things twice, (which I frequently do anyway) using the two different palettes. At some point, I will change the second palette back to the Phthalo Blue (Red Shade) and substitute Primary Yellow for Hansa Yellow Opaque. Way, way down the road, depending on what I learn, I might set up the second palette with both of the alternative colors.

Here is what I finished today. After I was done, I decided on my next complicated subject and easy subject and started the drawing for both.

Original palette

Background

The cat theme continues! This month, I've been thinking more about backgrounds. There's all of this space. While it's not the focal point, it is important too. Many times the actual background from life does not work, so you have to decide what to do and move forward. Most of my cat backgrounds this month have had a strong color and it's been fun deciding what color to use and how to shift the values to denote the light. Last night, I decided to go in a different direction and experiment.

When my cats are in the kitchen, frequently, the background is a striped, flat pillow. The fabric is busy and from time to time, I try a different way to represent it.

On this one, I had to do the eyes twice. I painted over the first attempt. The picture really captured her eyes and I'm not sure that I captured it. Still, the intensity of her look / stare is there. I also painted over much of my original colors. At first, my colors were too blue-gray. While both of my gray cats have a warm, blue undertone to their fur, I tend to over do it. When I thought I was almost done, I mixed some grays which were more neutral. To my eyes, these grays are actually a tad ugly when they are on the palette or the brush. The color looks sickly to me, so I was hesitant to use it. On the black gesso, I liked how they looked so I toned down some of the blue gray tones. I must remember this for future reference!

What To Do With The Blues

The sky was amazing late in the afternoon on Tuesday. I was driving to a northern suburb and the clouds had all sorts of different textures. Plus, the clouds were dramatically colored from a medium warm gray to bright white. The blue sky peeked out here and there. The different shades of blue were quite varied. I caught myself thinking about brush strokes for the clouds and what color to use to capture the different shades of blue.

Since I struggle a bit figuring out what color to paint the sky and water, I decided to play with my blues. Last night, I experimented with the two blues in my palette, phthalo blue green shade (GS) and phthalo blue red shade (RS), To get the lighter versions, I used titanium white. On the left is the GS. On the right is the RS. In the middle, I mixed the two. Since it seemed like the RS is "stronger", I tried to mix in a bit more of the GS. Who knows what the final proportions were in the mix.

If I remember the sky correctly, I think it was the color of the mixed shade along with something in between the mixed shade and the RS. This was a good experiment. On the palette, the RS just doesn't look like it should be for the sky, but the GS by itself, not surprisingly, is a little too green for the sky.

Play!

Yesterday, I went to Wet Paint for the supplies I need for my January drawing class. The class is calling for an 18 inch by 24 inch pad of paper and and 18 inch by 24 inch pad of newsprint. This seems like a ridiculously large size, but I got what was on the list. In addition, I also purchased a palette to hold the water color paint that I purchased awhile back, along with a nice brush and water brush for water color.

I got home from work early, so it was time to play. First up, I played with mixing brown in acrylic paint. For both sets of brown, the same yellow, red, and white paint was used for mixing. In the first set, the blue was the greener shade of blue.

In this set, I used the blue that has a red shape to it. Gee, these look warmer!

As I was mixing, it was interesting looking at the color on the palette and seeing how it looked different when painted on the black gesso. Some of the browns did not look very brown on the palette, but looked great on the black background. I had the same visual disconnect when I started mixing gray. For some reason, a gray that ends up looking neutral on the black background looks too yellow mixed in the palette.

Next up, it was time to play with watercolor. I set up my colors in the palette this morning and left them to dry during the day. Even though I have no idea what I'm doing, that didn't stop me. I painted a bunch of circles with the different paint colors and tried to make some saturated and some less so. My first attempt to mix a new color (purple, of course) turned out a little harsh.

Next up, I wanted to play with the water brush. I grabbed a page of drawing from way back at the beginning of the year (January 11, 2016, to be exact) when I was doing the January daily drawing challenge with Creativebug.  These were drawn with a permanent marker, so it was safe to color them in with the water brush.

This is one of the reasons that I purchased water colors. I want to be able to add color to drawings and I also want to get or make a small travel set.

Last, but not least, I tried a bunch of sketches last night. Mostly, I tried to draw a bottle with a wire and cork closure.  They didn't turn out very well, so I switched to the little zipper back used to carry around drawing supplies. Earlier in the week, I watched a short video about hatch marks. I played around with them trying to show the shape / fold in the bag and to show the shadow.

It was really, really fun to have play time, this afternoon.

Brown Is Harder Than Gray

Time has been short. When I've had time, I've mostly been drawing. Tonight, I took the time to practice mixing brown colors. My conclusion is that most of these are not very brown!

Getting There

Typically, the third time is the charm and this is the second attempt. It's better than the first attempt, but not quite where I want it to be. I made my grays less gray this time.

After I finished the painting, I went back to mixing gray. There are a lot of different types of gray!

Colors That Whisper

Yesterday was the third painting class. We painted mugs and most of us had time to do two paintings. There was a lot of good discussion about drawing, angles, and shape, which I will think about and revisit this week.

Here is my first mug. I was drawn to it, since it was a nice dark blue color and I don't play with the blue paint as "blue" very often. It had a wide rim.

I was drawn to the second mug and actually borrowed it for the week. There are two things that I liked about it. It's shape (which I did not capture very well in my painting) and it's color. It's odd to be drawn to essentially an off-white mug. The colors in it whisper. They don't shout and mostly I am drawn to colors that shout.

Getting to these colors was a circuitous path with lots of layers, but I am pleased with them and I'm excited about being able to revisit this mug.

Fall 2016 Painting Class

The first class was yesterday. The group includes two of my best buddies.  The first exercise was to paint a color wheel.  This is probably the truest red that I have ever made, since my starting color is more magenta than red.

It's good to know how to mix a truer red. I had been thinking about buying a different red to play with and now I don't need it. My guess is if I expand with even one additional color, I will want to go crazy and buy lots and lots of additional ones. There is so much to learn and I think it is better to focus and learn with the five colors I have.

The next exercise was to paint a piece of fruit.  I picked a tomato.

I have been painting from pictures so much, it was weird using a viewfinder. It is a wonderful tool, but it drives me a little crazy trying to hold it at the same angle in the same place, in order to draw accurately.

Fresh Palette

Every three to four months, I wear through the paper that holds the paint in my palette.  When that happens, it's time to set up a fresh palette.  Since I am still very new to painting, this is only the second time that I've replaced the paper.

It's almost a little intimidating staring down at so much white space.

That won't last for long.  My goal for this time around is to be more gentle when I mix colors.  I feel like I push down to hard when mixing and drive the paint down through the paper into the sponge below.  I am really, really going to try to be gentle, gentle and keep more paint on the brush.