Project: Understanding colour
After I did some research on Chevreul’s colour system I started doing all the exercises and I can only say in short that all these exercises are very academic when it comes to using colour. For example in exercise mixing grey finding the neutral grey colour was very hard to find as if you have a small scale the colour is not really neutral you have to make a large scale with great precision to get the true neutral grey. After doing this exercise and finding the neutral grey it can be said that it looks different on a white background and different on a dark background. This was similar in the primary and secondary colour mixing where the identification of colours was dependant on the pigments in the paint I used, I only had a limited amount of colours so this made the exercise more difficult. You can also see a difference in colour depending on what background it is on in the case of the colours. The exercise broken or tertiary colour was much more interesting as I managed to get a wider scale of tertiary colours. I am not really sure how to use this scale in practice as after doing the next exercise comparing colours I have come to the conclusion they appear to have a different temperature and appear differently on the canvas. I think that in expressionist or impressionist painting all tertiary or broken colours are made accidently and you see these colours when two or three complimentary colours are mixed. Of course if you look at classic painting all this is seen as it was deliberately done by the painter. At my stage it is good to understand and learn about colour but in practice to focus more on intuition and do the paintings in a more spontaneous way not scientifically analysing the colours. I have these views as there are a lot of important stages to planning and painting and if we only focus on this it might have negative effects on the painting but I do think that the exercises are very interesting and will come in useful in later stages.
Project Still Life
Exercise : Drawing in paint
I do not have experience with paint and drawing. I had a similar problem in the watercolour course, so I decided to paint some objects like a sofa, pillows, curtains and a table and using black line to highlight the geometrical forms. I first outlined the objects, then I filled it all with colour and re-did some black lines to make them stand out. I am not sure I did that exercise properly. After that, I did another exercise with flowers, and repeated that exercise with the still life of apples and flowers; the lines appear more naturally
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Exercise: Still life with flower
For this exercise I set up a vase with flowers, and after doing some sketches I tried to paint still life with the flower. I am not happy with the two of them. However, with the pink flower petals, I made it look very flat and not very 3-dimensional. I probably made a mistake with my observation because I wanted to present all flowers in a real colour. I should have added darker colours to the palette, but if I did I think it would look like a different flower.
Exercise: Still life with natural objects
For this exercise I used some tomatoes, apples, and cauliflower. I placed everything on a white tablecloth, with a dark background. I think, after I painted the flower, it is better to use a dark background because it is easy to show the object in the space and show where the light is. I looked at some Dutch still life painters where often they use dark colours for the background, so I tried that. I tried to be spontaneous and used dark lines to show the shadow. I learned that from previous exercise.
Exercise: Still life with- man made objects
For this exercise I painted a sugar bowl, a kettle and a teacup. I used the dark background again, and everything was placed on the white tablecloth. In this exercise I tried to show some geometrical forms on all these objects, and then I started painting all these objects in colour. I understood that you have to concentrate on the lighting and when I look carefully how the light appears on each object, I especially saw many different colours are on the kettle. The teacup and sugar bowl were already white in colour. I tried to find a connection between the background and the cloth. I used the same palette and the same brush marks, but i concentrated on that the man made objects differ from the background
Project Colour relationships
Exercise: Exploring contrasts and successive contrast
When I did that exercise, I was influenced by optical art work such as Bridget Riley and I think about this exercise like a scientific experiment. It was not a very nice experience for me and my eyes to look at the bright complementary colours opposite to the spectrum. In my conclusion, this kind of colour mixing must come with some kinetic and geometrical connection. If I close my eye, all of the complementary colours still flash in my eyes. This effect makes some kind of vibration, waving and different kind of emotions. I can learn from that exercise how to appear some colour or some colourful objects to the first plan on the canvas making most visibility and bring most attention for the audience, make stronger specific mood.
Exercise : Colour accuracy
In this exercise I painted a couple of onions, apples, a lemon and a bottle of wine. I painted each object separately, and concentrated on getting the exact colour of the object. I did not concentrate on the connection between each object. Only in the end I started to look for a connection between the background and the tablecloth by using the same brush marks. I think I acted accordingly to the instructions, because i concentrated on the colour accuracy of each object, but less attention on the bowl. But after I finish the whole painting, I realised that with the apple and the lemon, it looks like I have cut it out of a magazine or something and stuck it on. I think I showed some accuracy with the bottle of wine and onion and I think the onions played well with the background.
Exercise: Still life with complementary colours
For this exercise I used Naptholene Carmine and Primary Cyan. I mixed this paint with white to get the lightest colour for lightest shades. I am happy with this exercise because when using both these hues I achieved many broken colours and I think I achieved some space effect and i use clear complementary colours in the front and many broken colours in the background. I think everything plays well and is well connected. It was very exciting and educational- I’ve learned much from this exercise. I think I can use the monochrome practice in the future because without using many colours you can still create a very rich palette. You can avoid mistakes with using too many colours.
Exercise: Still Life with colour used to evoke mood
For this exercise I did not set up any still life but used my table as it was after a dinner party. I thought it would be interesting to leave the table as it was because it was a natural composition. Also, the background was interesting. I looked at the table from a distance and the light fell in through the window and the room was quite dark on the next morning. I did not concentrate on the shape of the objects, but attempted to recreate atmosphere of the morning sun. I tried to find the right balance between all colours that I used and made sure the light colours had a warm temperature and the dark shadows have the same strength. I made some mistakes in that picture, but I am generally happy with how I showed the light on the bottles. When I looked from the distance, everything looks like it has a very impressionist light balance. I think I played too much attention to the shape of the objects on the first plane.
Project Drawing and painting interiors
Exercise : Quick sketches around the house
Exercise : Simple perspective in interior studies
I drew some sketches around the house, and I did a lot of quick studies, not only for this course but also for the drawing course and the watercolour course. I studied some interior painters as well, so I wrote about Nabis Group. I decided to use a simple perspective in my picture, and I found an interesting place in the corner of my sitting room. I used a different palette; I used more brown and more dark. I also used some line painting in this picture. I tried to recreate some perspective and I think I achieved that and we can see everything in the space clearly. I did not pay too much attention to the detail, but using the lines I set up everything in the space. To make that picture more interesting I used mostly same palette for each object and tried to define its size in the space. We can clearly compare size of the object in the background to the front.
Yohannes Vermeer
One of the most famous Dutch artist. He was known as the Master of light. He only left 34 paintings but in each painting he could stop and capture life. We can find hundreds of academic work analysing his paintings. I can only say in short that the artist used great composition, colour and perspective is also exceptional. The artist joined realism with classical beauty.
The secret of his painting is that he used Camera Obscure. The first person to suggest this was American graphic Joseph Pennell, he was the one who noticed the photographic perspective. The focus point and object accuracy in paintings by the artist in the 17th century was something unusual.
The next thing I want to mention is the ways of painting light, its reflections and shadows on different objects. In reality light takes shape from its source for example the light in Vermeer paintings should have a rectangular shape of the windows but the painter has given it oval and circular shapes. The light disappears and flows through the painting in a very delicate way and still appears natural.
Another thing is colour. Vermeer used the highly pigmented colours but his pallet was normally limited to around twenty pigments and in some paintings he only used seven. He used a technique particular to the period called “Glaze”, using this technique the colours are very intense and light as if they shine from within. The Artist paid attention to detail and spent a long time on each painting. Every object had a meaning and was just as important but in some way he manipulated reality and focused our eyes on specific elements of the painting to give the painting a more mysterious feel. I can see some similarities between his and Caravaggio’s paintings. I was mostly inspired by two of his paintings ‘The Astronomer’ and ‘The Geographer’ where the main characters of the paintings are both found in the same room, the paintings have the same detail such as the same fabric, wardrobe, window and map on the wall but they are painted in different light conditions because of this we can easily compare the two compositions and make analysis on things such as how the colours appear differently in the different light conditions.
http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/v/vermeer/03d/29geogr.html
http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/v/vermeer/03d/28astro.html
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