VILLAGE DEMO ‘ GRISAILLE ‘ UNDER-PAINTING

This is an in-class demo I did recently at The Shadbolt Center (kinda quick and dirty) but shows an interesting method for producing an image. This method may also be of interest to the SSWR group at Semiahmoo, where we are using it for Painting the Coast. First, I did a blue-gray under-painting (slightly grayed down blue to avoid having to deal with intense blues – the blues will also make the toned areas recede, as in shadows, windows, etc. The grisaille method can also be done with warms such as burnt umber or even greens – experiment!). I re-did it because I didn’t photograph it the first time, in which I also masked the figures, intending to save some whites for clothing without using white opaque..  Secondly I over-painted the grisaille with actual hues. Notice that the blue does not show in the final. This is because I used slightly orange-warm washes for the buildings, which cancels out the blue as complementary color. The advantage of this is that it lets you work out the composition and values before committing to color and detail too early. I did this as a demo, but I think the method (which is actually very old and certainly not mine, originally – check out grisaille on Wiki) can be interesting and effective. In the modern era we tend do go directly to full color, but when color was very expensive and precious, it was common to do a grisaille underpainting.

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Shadbolt Center “Boat in Lake” Concept Overview – COLOR AS TONE – Oct 19, 2017

Getting a little bored with simple realism? As the title suggests, here is a way of seeing and painting called “Color as Tone”, sometimes called ‘arbitrary color’. Actually the hue may be arbitrary, but the tones or tonal value shapes are not.

I am sure that we all, at some stage of our painting development, have seen paintings which impress us with the ‘creative’perhaps adventurous use of color, for example, the Impressionists, but there are many others.  This is a method that many use to achieve this effect. Not the only method – but I like it! I will add a few video demos on this soon.

Click title below for PDF:

COLOR AS TONE 

 

 

SKETCHING VERNAZZA AND RIOMAGGIORE (Shadbolt Center July 2017))

This is a demo of drawing techniques for travel sketching using charcoal (the square-section compressed charcoal is what I use , sometimes called drawing pastel black). Actually, a cleaner, more convenient alternative for travel would be gray felt pens, such as COPIC brand, wide nibs, neutral gray, just a couple of grays plus black fineliner (Type the name  “copic” into the search box on this site to see how this medium can be used to render and color images.). You can use colored pencils over the top.  We first did some practice mark-making and then sketched two villages of the Cinqueterra. See the photos below the video. For the village sketches, I begin with light gesture, then build up 3 tonal values for shapes. Then finish with some contour lines/details, such as edges and windows.

Reflections Sailboat Mirror Studies

People have asked if reflections should be longer, shorter, or the same as the actual object. The annoying answer is “It depends.” I made a little sailboat (about 3 inches high) by carving a white vinyl eraser and making a sail by cutting a credit card, painting it white and drawing a curve with a sharpie. I placed the model on a hand mirror and took some shots. I have done the same thing with toys of animals, people, etc. I like to make little quick model set-ups to study such problems, including light, shadow, etc.  As you can see, the height of the reflection depends on the angle of the object vs. the mirror surface. The same thing applies to mountains or trees along a lake edge.

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