Week of 12/21

Hi All,
It's high time I've posted what you're to be working on over Christmas and New Years!  You'll remember that I told you to investigate/reasearch Tom Nozkowski much like you were to do Tomma Abts.  In the same way, "forge" a Tom Nozkowski painting in your sketchbooks (be sure to let them dry completely before you close them!).  Even though they are both abstract painters and they work at a fairly small scale, note how both painters' similarities and differences.

Here are some links to starting points for your research:
http://www.pacegallery.com/artists/337/thomas-nozkowski
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_YqtaAUuUo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHj4amcDZAQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ij4Vq5KGxu4

Good luck!

Week of 12/16

Hi All,
So we WILL be meeting this coming week--December 21--but we will not be meeting on December 28th.  Then we will resume in the new year on January 4.

This week at home you will research the artist Tomma Abts, and then "forge" a Tomma Abts painting in your sketchbooks.  This forgery is NOT a copy of an existing painting.  Instead you are to make a new painting that could be mistaken for an Abts painting.  In the research phase, you job is to discern what is indicative about her work, and then apply that piece of intelligence to your painting.

What we know: she is a hard edged abstract painter that only makes 15x19 paintings.  Her paintings are very carefully crafted.  Each painting has a fairly limited color scheme (so choose 3 or 4 colors that look good together)  There is often the illusion of parts of the paintings jutting out and the viewer.  We know this because there is often a suggestion of shadows being cast from some forms.

Here are some links to her work:
http://www.davidzwirner.com/artists/tomma-abts/
http://www.arthistoryarchive.com/arthistory/abstractexpressionism/Tomma-Abts.html
http://www.artspace.com/tomma_abts
http://www.gclass.org/lessons/plans/tomma-abts-abstract-painting (feel free to do the lessons in this one!)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomma_Abts

Good luck!

Week of 12/7

Hey All,
This week at home you are to, like we did in class, choose a neutral colored (beige) object.  Light that object with warm light from a lamp, and invent color that corresponds to the temperature of the color structure that you observe.  Remember, it's the temperature that matters, not the hue.  Wherever the warm lamp light hits is warm, wherever it doesn't hit (barring reflection) is cool.  Make sure the values make sense as well.  The warm lights should be lighter than the middle tones as well as warmer.
Don't neglect the negative space!  In order for the lights to look light, the negative space should be substantially darker.
Every square inch of space should be covered with paint!
Good luck.

Week of 11/30

Hi all,
Like we did in class, you are to make a painting of an object focusing on color temperature.  Choose a white(ish) interesting object, light it with a strong warm light source, and paint it using warm oranges and yellows for the lights, and cool blue-grays and purples for the shadows.  Note what happens to reflected color--it tends to turn warm!  DO NOT neglect the negative space.  In order for the the lights to look light the background must be much darker.  Fill in every square inch of your page with paint. Good luck!

Week of 11/16

Hi all,
Sorry for not posting earlier!  This week you are to take a couple of simple, brightly colored objects--preferably with a more or less single local color.  Then you are to put them under a strong light source, arrange them in an interesting way, and paint them realistically.  Treat them the same way we treated the ball and flip-flop.  Don't worry about detail.  Edit out any detail that disappears when you squint at it.  Remember that color mainly behaves in the same way in real life as it does in the color scales, with the exception of reflecting color.  Just do the best you can!  Good luck!

P.S.--Fill a sketchbook page!

Week of 11/9

Hi All,
This week you are to choose a monochromatic object--it should be a bright color, not a dull one--and paint that object in the same manner as the "eggs" that we painted in class.  Whatever object you choose, draw it first by outlining the color/value sections--the shifting from light to dark--and fill in those different sections with the appropriate pure hue, tint or shade.

First decide where the pure hue will go and carefully fill in the whole section.  Then mix and fill in tints and shades as needed.  Remember that the pure hue will follow the same rules as any color: the brightest version of it happens in it's most natural form.  Yellow is very light, red is somewhere in the middle, blue is somewhere in the darker end of the scale.

One last thing: your object should FILL a page of your sketchbook!

Week of 11/2

Hi All,
This week we are starting to explore color!  Below is an explanation of Color that I call "Color Notes."  Some of the info in it is stuff that we discussed in class, and some is new.  Read it thoroughly before making your color scales.

Color breaks down into three parts:

1.                   Value—the lightness or darkness of a color; how close is it to black or white?

2.                   Hue—the title of a color: yellow, red, blue, brown, etc.

3.                   Chroma—the strength or intensity of a color; also called saturation.

So, if any one of these elements changes from one color sample to another, then those two colors are technically not the same.  For instance, if the value and hue are the same, but the chroma is slightly more or less, then the colors being compared are different.   In the same way, two colors can actually be closer in nature than they initially appear by having the hue and chroma similar but the value much different.

Black and White

It is also important to note that black and white hues theoretically do not have chroma, only value.  Therefore they cannot be considered true colors (even though we tend to refer to them as such).  A color mixed with black is called a shade, color mixed with white is called a tint, and color mixed with a combination of black and white (achromatic gray, explained below) is called a tone.  The nice thing about black and white not being true colors is that a tint or a shade of any color is a change to that color’s value without changing that color’s hue.  It will also change the color’s intensity/chroma by diluting the pigment in the paint, and therefore making it less chromatically saturated or intense.  The density of a pigment suspension in oil paint is pretty much directly related to that color’s intensity.   Because of this, a color is at its highest intensity straight out of the tube, so a color mixed from two different pigments cannot be as chromatic (theoretically speaking) as the pigments on their own.

Chroma at Value

Another thing that you must be aware of is that each hue reaches its highest intensity at a different value.  Yellow is at its highest saturation at a very high key, whereas blue and violet are at their highest at a very low value.  Green, I think, is surprisingly high, similar to orange, which are both a little higher than red (though not much).  Earth tones tend to come from either broken prismatic (pure) colors or dark shades of high key hues.

It is worth noting that as shades of yellow darken—with more black added—the color that results looks green, even though the hue is still technically  yellow and hasn’t changed at all.  As more black is added to orange—without changing the hue—it gets brown.

Grays

There are basically two types of grays: “achromatic” grays and “chromatic” grays.  Achromatic grays are literally grays without any color, that is, they don’t have hue and very little intensity, only value.  They are grays made by mixing black and white.  Chromatic grays are, not surprisingly, grays with color, or grays that involve mixing complimentary colors (and possibly white and/or black).  The range of chromatic grays is almost infinite, and a color is considered a chromatic gray as long it is at least slightly broken, or mixed with a compliment.  You can have a color that is mixed with equal parts of red and green to make a very broken color that is close to the center of the color wheel, or one made of very unequal parts closer to the edge of the color wheel.  For instance, any blue that has even the slightest bit of orange in it is really a chromatic gray, because it is at least slightly broken by the orange.  It could still look extremely blue, especially if it’s put up against a much more broken or contrasting color, but it is a “gray” nonetheless.  So, paintings that look intensely colorful are often merely made up of chromatic grays.s

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So, this week you are to make 6 color scales--one for each primary and secondary color (so red, yellow, blue, green, orange, violet).  If you have multiple versions of a color, if you have more than one red for example, choose the one closest to prismatic red. 

Each scale is to be 7 boxes, with white as the next step up from the top and black being the next step down from the bottom, just like we did in class.  First, you are to choose where the pure color hue  would fit in the scale immediately out of the tube.  Then, mix white into the hue to match the ascending color tones, and mix in black to match the descending color tones.

So one of the boxes will be pure color with the rest being tints or shades as needed.  Make sure each step is the same as all the rest!  

This project is to be done in your sketchbooks, so be sure your page is dry before you close it!  Feel free to fit several color scales on each page.  Neatness  counts!  Make the edges of all your boxes clean and sharp.  Good luck!

Isometric Perspective

Hi all,
This week you are to make an isometric perspective drawing of your home--or at least of a floor of your home if it has multiple stories.  Include all the detritus (stuff on the floors and walls) in your house as well.
Remember that in isometric perspective there are no vanishing points.  Things look closer only because they are lower on the page, not because they are smaller.  Therefore, parallel lines must STAY parallel.  Feel free to use a straight edge.  Good luck!

Week of 10/19

Hi All,
This week you are to make a Drawing of an interior part of your house in such a way that Linear Perspective breaks down, often refered to as Open Perspective. You are to choose a cone of vision that is too broad for the straight lines of formal linear perspective to convincingly convey.  In a wide cone of vision you'll need to make those "straight"lines curved in order to show convincing space.  Think of a fish-eyed camera lens and draw like that.  Easy-peezy!

BTW, it goes without saying that you are to include all the stuff--furniture, wall hangings, doors and windows--that you would see in the space you choose to draw; also to be drawn in open perspective.

Week of 10/12

Hi All!
This week in your sketchbook you are to make a Linear Perspective Drawing. You are to make a drawing of an interior room in perspective that has at least one door or window through which you can see at least one other room (a hallway counts as a room).  Include the objects that are in the room and draw them in one or two point perspective as appropriate (i.e. furniture, framed pictures, appliances, shelving, etc.)  So there will be a room--with the objects in it--in the foreground as well as the background. 

Use 1 and/or 2 point perspective, but also things as you see them.  Do NOT include the extended orthogonal lines of perspective (erase them)!  This should be an interesting finished drawing, not a sterile sketch, so take as much time as you need to finish it.  Mind that you don’t choose a subject for which the rules of linear perspective break down.  Instead, choose a subject that will lend itself to perspective with dramatic diagonals and angles moving away into space!  It’s your choice, and therefore your responsibility.  Use the whole page.  Obviously you won’t be able to draw things life sized, but take the time to think about how big stuff will be on your page.

Remember to note your eye level and make sure all vanishing point happen at your eye level. All parallel lines share the same vanishing point. Also, make sure all straight lines stay straight! They can wobble, but make sure they end up going in the same direction that they started.

I realize that this will be a real challenge for the most of you.  That's okay!  Embrace the challenge, and next week in class I'll show you more ways to think about and explore Linear Perspective.  This is just the first exercise.  Just do your best.

Week of 10/5

This week you are to use the spatial strategies that we discussed in class (see image below) and make a drawing that uses ALL of these strategies to make a drawing with a fully rounded sense of illusionistic space.

The subject of your drawing may be anything appropriate for expressing both deep and shallow space.  Somewhere in your drawing there should be the illusion of only a few feet of depth, and somewhere there should be the illusion of infinite space (i.e. sky).  I only ask that you drawing is as beautifully crafted as you are able.  Do not just do it to get it done.  Have pride in your work . . . !

Week of 9/28 (week 3)

Ha! I finally forced you to look at the blog!  I told you I would bend you to my will . . . mwah, mwah, mwaaaaah. *laughs while rubbing hands together in faux evil way*

But seriously, folks . . . your homework for this week is taking what we did in class (kind of) and bringing it home. Minus the paint. And the color. And the subject. But everything else is the same. Kind of.

You are to choose a plant or otherwise growing or recently growing plant (i.e. a houseplant, cut flower, outdoor bush, etc.). You are then to draw it emphasizing the negative space in the drawing using a B pencil. You do not have to fill in the negative space unless you want to. You must draw it in such a way as for the plant to go off the page on at least three sides (to force you to FILL the paper).

Since this is a drawing about negative space, you can ignore a lot of the detail that happens in the positive space. Don't be distracted by it! What matters most are the little holes in which you can see the background. Be sure that they are in the right places and the right shapes--don't be satisfied with a shape that's merely pretty close. Drawing that way is lazy! If you get the shape of the negative space right, then the positive will just fall into place. Trust that!

Good luck!

Week 2

This week you are to choose an interesting chair--a folding chair or a dining room chair or similar--and make an observational drawing of it.  You must fill a page of your sketchbook with your chair drawing, but you are NOT to crop the chair at all.  In other words it should not touch any of the edges of your paper, and you are not to change it in order to keep it on the page!

Focus on the shape of the negative (background) spaces throughout the chair, and trust that if you accurately get the shape of the negative space, then the positive space (the silhouette of the chair it itself) will automatically be the right shape.

Once you have an accurate silhouette shape, allow the positive space to remain the white of the paper, and fill in the negative space an even black with a soft pencil.  Make sure the edges where the positive meets the negative are nice and sharp!

Have fun and good luck!

Week 1

Like we did in class, you are to set up a composition of forms that is BALANCED!
Like the triangles, choose two recognizable forms (bicylces, elephants, superheroes, etc.), another recognizable form, and a made-up form--all of which might be at different scales--and arrange them in a composition that is balanced using pencil.  You are also to make each form a specific value and/or texture in such a way as to keep things balanced.  In addition to that, you are to choose a natural looking texture or pattern to put on the ground upon which the objects are placed .  Your composition should fill your paper to all four edges.
Remember, you are essentially repeating the exercise that we did in class, only with more complicated objects and textures.  Have fun and good luck.

As I said I would do in class, here is a link to the artisanal pencil sharpener--the internet's foremost expert on sharpening pencils.  https://vimeo.com/60718161

Note that there is some profanity in the video (three words), so if that is a problem don't watch it.   Also, here is a link to his website: http://www.artisanalpencilsharpening.com/index.html

IT'S A NEW SCHOOL YEAR!

Hi All,
This is a greeting post that will hopefully get everyone on the same page as it were as we start the school year.  Check this blog regularly for project info, updates, and anything else that I feel you all might need to know.

Note that tomorrow when we meet you'll need to have a sketchbook available.  I'll have everything else. . . See you soon!

Mr. Kyle Stevenson