Color: From Boring to Brilliant! | Instructor, Patti Mollica ©Patti Mollica
Homework assigment Week 1:
Note to students:
Your “heaviest” homework assignment falls on week 1. Since this is a “work at your own pace” workshop, take your time with this and all the homework exercises. There is no deadline for you to complete the assignments by. It’s more important that you do it at a pace that allows you to explore and be creative. Enjoy and learn!
Colorful Greys and Color Scheme Introduction
Exercise 1:
Colorful Greys Color Chart, non-formula approach
You will be making a chart of “colorful greys” in random colors and values
To see a short video on mixing the colors, click here: https://youtu.be/qqff09f5pY4
Exercise 2:
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Exercise 1:
I call this exercise the Chaos to Calm Approach.
Create an underpainting with shapes, forms, lines, etc, painting, anything you want to start with. Be experimental with your mark-making, enjoy the process. It can be anything you want, try out different ideas. You can use random colors or pick a color palette you like. This will be an underpainting where parts of it will show thru into the final painting. Think about what types of colors - or neutrals - you want peeking thru.
Sketch out your image lightly on top of your chaotic backgroud and start forming your subject. Don’t rush thru this. Get the basic shapes in the right place (in relation to each other, and the whole). You can add strokes that don’t mean anything, and you can add strokes and brushmarks that indicate forms and values. I.e. if the right side of your object is in light, make a stroke or shape with a light color. If the left side is darker, make a stroke or a shape in a darker color. Even with all the chaos going on, try to be aware of the values of your subject, it will hold the painting together.
Try not to paint over all the chaos. The point is to let underpaintning colors and shapes peek thru in unexpected places.
As soon as your painting starts to get too tight for your taste, add more random chaos. Let the chaos be intuitive and thoughtful - it does not have to be fast and crazy or mindless. You may (or may not) want to think about what the painting may need, color-wise or value-wise. Play a game of going back and forth, and be comfortable with the fact that this is an unpredicatable process, and you don’t know where it will end. Don’t get too precious with any one part of the underpainting that you are trying to “save”. Sacrifice those parts to do whats right for the painting as a whole. Make it fun, go out on a limb. Experiment, see what happens. That is part of the fun - letting unpredictable marks and colors show thru.
If you are finding this to be too complex or confusing, stick to simple shapes! Paint oranges or apples or another simple shape like coffee cups, etc.
Hint: This technique often works best with subjects that have distinctive and easily identifiable silhouettes, not complex hard-to-understand shapes. It helps to work with subjects that have recognizable silhouettes. Use the images from previous classes. Feel free to simplify or crop the images to your liking.
Questions to Ask yourself:
Are my marks interesting or are they all similar shapes, or colors?
Is my underpainting all basically one value like dark, middle or light? (Squint or take a b/w photo)
How much chaos am I comfortable with letting show through?
How abstract is too abstract for me? How defined is too defined?
Where can I let the background and subject merge together?
Do the colors of the background clash, harmonize or enhance the colors of my subject?
Are the backgound and the subject integrating, or do they look like two separate artists painted them?
When your work post your work, post your chaotic start (the underpainting), and your finish. Enjoy the "not-knowingness" of where the chaos will appear in your painting!
Shown are examples of the chaos to calm approach.