Bill Perkins Color Boot Camp - Day 3

Push the Color. Paintings are about light. Take what’s infront of yyou. Look at dynamic relationships and find out what’s going on Look what the range is.
The minor key is the range of contrast wit in your component. There are 7 individual components in a painting. Break things down into a logical way so you can understand it.
In painting you put something down and then you check yourself.

Arthur Dow defines design principles as Opposition, Transition, Subordination, Repetition, Symmetry. This is the California Craftsman approach.

Maitland Graves in “The Art of Color and Design” talks of Line, Value, Shape and Proportion.

In the “Visual Story” Bruce Block talks of Line, Tone, Shape, Color, Space, Rhythm and Movement

Mentions A. Donlis “A primer to Visual Literacy” and Line, Mass and Form is how we stylize things visually.

There are seven basic contrasts.
Contrast of Hue
Contrast of Light/Dark
Contrast of Warm/Cool
Contrast of Complementary
Contrast of Saturation
Contrast of Extension (Proportion and Placement of Color)
Simultaneous Contrast
http://www.worqx.com/color/itten.htm

When you paint ask yourself
- What is my matrix? Light vs. Shadow or Light vs. Dark. Then think of your range from Lightest to Darkest and Brightest.

Bill Perkins Color Boot Camp - Day 2

We painted today with a palette of Black, White, Cadmium Yellow Light, Napthol Red, Raw sienna and Quinox.

Burnt Sienna is a black orange
Cadmium Yellow Light + White gives a cool
Raw Sienna is used by Bill on his palette as a dark yellow. He prefers it to yellow ochre because it is warmer.
Keying a painting – Major Key and Minor Key
(He mentioned Zorn Palette but I don’t have clear notes about it)
Value, Hue and Saturation will define where any color lies on the wheel. Hue is measured around circumference. Value sets up mood of the painting. Color Wheel is a theory.

Mixing paint is subtractive. The more you mix the color the more neutral the color becomes.

Bill mentions George Bellows and the Ashcan group and something about Mirada and premixing palette on composition (but I am not clear on my notes). Bill doesn’t like Cadmium Red Medium that much because he says it grays too fast.

Bill Perkins Color Boot Camp - Day 1

The Goal of the Color Boot camp is 25 to 30 paintings in 5 days. Not interested in rendered images. Must paint what is important first. The idea is assessing relationships. What are you looking at? Eliminate naming generic items. Look for Basic spots of color.

The skeleton of a painting can be considered it’s MATRIX. When you start to paint assess clearly. Determine what the pattern in. Then put it down boldly. Once you put it down stick to it.
There is an idea of NOTAN vs. CHIAROSCHURO. Every object has a local value. If the painting is a 3D it’s going to have form but a painting is not always about form.
There are 3 Elements of Design: 1)Notan 2)Chiaroscuro 3)Line/Texture.

When you are putting be critical about what you are seeing and what you are putting down.
A painting can be about Light &. Dark or Light & Shadow. The values set the mood of your piece. Sargeant mainly paints in Notan but then we switches to form around the face.

When you go to a museum the paintings will have a strong bias to chiaroscuro or notan.
Smaller surfaces are darker because the reflect less light. Larger masses reflect more light. We need to have a clear distinction about what’s in light and what’s in shadow. When you have string contrast you can really get the feel of light. If you have light and shadow sgapes can have more reflected light. When you paint hit the light and shadow patterns first.

A painting can range from High Key (overall light) to Low Key (overall dark). There is also the major key (overall proportions) and a minor key (contrast range with your painting). It is important to fine tune your comparing and expand the way you compare.

Color Workshop - Nathan Fowkes - Concept Design Academy

I went to a color workshop with one of my idols - Nathan Fowkes. I love his landsketch blog. His paintings are amazing - they about the most beautiful paintings I've ever seen.

So what did he say? Here we go .......................



Color can be used to reach people at a gut emotional level.

He suggested looking at Paul Lasaine. paullasaine.blogspot.com. He said he is painterly with good drawing and good structure.

NF's (Nathan Fowkes) first job in Animation was on the Prince of Egypt. He thinks he was hired for his painterly style. He was assigned early on the color keys for the Royal Banquet Sequence.

(color keys are small loose paintings w/ info for the final frame)

NF said what he had to offer was his understanding of "Unity with Variety"

UNITY (stable, predictable, repetitious, boring)
VARIETY (surprise, out of the ordinary, unpredictable, uncomfortable)

NF said "Variety is the spice of life but Monotony provides the groceries)

Unity are colors that are closest together on the color wheel.

Most colors in nature or neutralized.

If something is boring then add contrast.

Sometimes triads, complements that have too much variety can become garrish.

The definition of garrish is too many things that don't relate to each other.

He said he grew as an artist by copying James Reynolds everday. You have to be commited.

NF talked about getting so familiar with something.

NF talked about cools and warms placed against each other.

He talked about El Dorado and Spirit.

He talked about Sinbad where a green interior contrasted Sinbad's red costume. How Sinbad was in red but the city people were in blues and made from straights and curves. Sinbad had many sharp angles.

NF talked about in Shark's Tale that the main character is golden orange because he is in water and water is blue thus he stands out by being the complement.

COLOR HARMONIES

A color harmony needs a story point

How do we push harmonies towards emotions?

METAPHORS
- I was feeling blue
- Green with envy
- A white lie
- A black mood

A single color can hit us at a gut emotional level. Colors can be likened to music with major and minor keys.

A color was
1. hue
2. saturation
3. value
4. temperature

These four things are used to create contrast.

As artists we need to get competent in using colling to pull out emotional beats.

There is shape language and color language.

He talked about how color can have different meanings. For Example, green can be a color of nature but can also me poision or unearthly.

An ashen/gray can be lifeless or sterile.

He talked about how blues and greens together can make a contempletive space.

Every time we make artwork we should ask ourself "What emotional response do I want people to have?"

NF talked about lighting and light on form. Need to study how colored light refects on surfaces.


He suggested looking at graphics.ucsd.edu/~henrik/images/

He said you can't understand color until you get outside and landscape paint.

NF mentioned Ron Lucas he said look at ushuaia.blogspot.com

NF talked about an animated version of Moby Dick that he did development on but didn't go.

He talked about color scripts and beatboards.

He mentioned people either do characters or environments you need to push your book towards one or the other.

He said he basically uses Photoshop but at Lucas Film they use painter.

He says we have a tendency as humans to notice details - but an artist has to give that up and learn how to make big simple statements.

And he said a lot more . . .

Artist Mentioned by Nathan Fowkes

Paul Lasaine - paullasaine.blogspot.com
James Reynolds
Susan Lyon
Craig Mulline
Scott Wills (Samurai Jack)
Ron Lucas
Zorn
Sargeant
Feng Ju
Stephan Martiniere
Klimt
www.graphics.ucsd.edu/~henrik/images
Ron Lucas - ushuaia.blogspot.com
David James
Scott Wills