THREE DOWN, ONE TO GO!

I redid the painting from the last post on traditional watercolor paper and I like it much better. I am actually using white and black pigment from the Dr. Martin's Hydrus liquid colors and I am pleased with the result. With GREY/TONE/SHADE, the tone parts look bright as long as I don't lower their intensity too much. I am a big believer in doing a painting a second or even third time until I get it right. Trying to rework watercolor just creates more problems than it fixes for me. I prefer a total do-over.

The second painting was my Split Compliment of Red/Blue Green and Yellow Green using the 3 forms of WHITE/HUE/TONE. I fudged a little with the hues because I wanted to try the Daniel Smith Watercolor Stix on this new paper I have. The colors I used were Quin Coral for the Red, Sap Green for the yellow green and Thalo Green, blue shade for the Blue Green. That's close enough. I actually like this one. It's pretty bizarre but fun. A little like a Baboon's bottom! The watercolor stixs actually worked much better on this paper than the tube paints I tried earlier. That means I shall take this paper with me for travel sketches in color. The stixs are good items for travel. I just touched a wet brush to them and painted directly on the paper.

The third painting used another Split Compliment combination of Yellow Orange with Blue and Violet. Faber Birren thinks that Split Compliments work best when there are two Tertiary colors and only one primary or secondary color. This one has only one Tertiary (yellow orange) but I am pleased with the results. The 3 color forms were TINT/TONE/SHADE.

I didn't get the last of the four paintings done today but it is nice to have something planned for the next day. It makes getting started so much easier. Tomorrow's painting will be with analogous colors. That should have a totally new look for Monsieur.

TINT AND TONE EQUAL IRIDESCENCE

I have been re-reading Faber Birren's book from cover to cover in order to fully comprehend his ideas. He has a very formal way of expressing himself and often it is difficult to totally process the concepts. Putting words to visual expression is very tricky I am finding out. It turns out that Birren's contribution to color as it applies to painting was mostly in the area of figuring out how to express luminosity, iridescence and luster along with chromatic light effects and mist, etc. Much of this is strange to apply to a portrait but the attempt creates some very unusual results. I don't think you can really get an iridescent face but I decided to do something with the formula in today's painting. The general idea is to have the majority of the painting in the mid value range fairly neutral with TONES and then have small touches of TINTS. Instead of having the TINTS as part of the features, I decided to super-impose these squares on top of the image just for the fun of it. By masking off the areas for tints, I was able to paint more easily. I created the TONES by mixing complements. I have my palette arranged according to Stephen Quiller's recommendations for perfect compliments. It makes life so easy when it is established this way. All of his palette is pure hues so it works very smoothly with Faber Birren's 7 forms of color triangle. This color effect is all about INTENSITY of color and controlling the VALUE range. INTENSITY is the degree of purity of hue versus neutralizing or dulling it down. The confusion of intensity comes when you lighten the hue but don't dull it. Theoretically it maintains it full intensity but not full SATURATION which has to do with the pigment load, not the purity. I understand the concept. I just think there could be a better term to describe the situation. I like PURITY myself but the term INTENSITY is here to stay.

Art has it's own specific language and we have to be consistent in order to communicate these visual concepts. Many years ago when I was a freshman at Washington University in St. Louis in one of my first classes, the professor gave a talk. I remember thinking it sounded like English but I didn't understand a thing he said! I hadn't learned "art speak" yet. I'm still working on it!

THE CHALLENGE

It seems like there are challenges everywhere I turn. First of all, the internet signal to my computer keeps cutting out. Just when I want to post to the blog, no connection! Irritating to say the least.

The second challenge is really comprehending all the color ideas in Faber Birren's book, "Creative Color". My copy dates back to 1961. I think it may be out of print. It was the text for the college class I took in color. I am rereading it and trying some of the exercises. Above is the latest "Frenchman" painting trying to get LUSTER effect. This is the use of HUE, SHADE, BLACK combination of color forms. It turns out that DOMINANCE is critical for the effect. A small amount of pure hue surrounded by dark shades or black give the optical illusion of luster. Luster is generally "seen" in metal or fabric, not skin. In a portrait the effect isn't exactly lustrious but a beautiful glow. Rembrandt did it best! I think this version from the "Vern" series worked better. At the time I was translating a beautiful landscape painting by Wolf Kahn into a color scheme for a portrait. Now I realize that it followed the HUE, SHADE, BLACK formula which produced this beautiful glowing light. My latest version isn't as dramatic and has a much warmer set of colors but I think it works. I did lose the "intensity" of the yellow when I glazed the painting with red. A little watercolor crayon should bring it back.

The next painting will be pure hue surrounded by gray or neutral tones to capture "luminosity". I have attempted this before with limited success.

FABER BIRREN'S COLOR CONCEPT

In response to Rhonda Carpenter's request for more information on my last post, I will describe what I am trying to accomplish.

Faber Birren devoted his life to the study of color. Perhaps the most complicated of all the elements of design. In his book "Creative Color", he devised this schematic shown above where you have HUE (PURE COLOR) WHITE & BLACK in an equilateral triangle. If you combine HUE with WHITE you create a color called a TINT. If you combine HUE with BLACK you create a color called a SHADE. Lastly, if you combine WHITE with BLACK you get GRAY. He places each of these between the HUE, WHITE AND BLACK. In the center is what is called a TONE. A TONE is created when you mix GRAY (BLACK & WHITE) with a HUE or when you neutralize a HUE by adding it's compliment. By adding a compliment you are in effect combining all three primary colors in some ratio. Even a small addition of the 3rd primary creates a dulled color. So, you can see that this "triangle" has lines connecting each to the other where there is some common element. The idea that he had was to draw a straight line through three connecting "words" and create a painting using only these aspects of color. Why? You would have a natural harmony because each element has a relationship with one of the others. This is also a way to establish mood.

So, within this concept, a HUE must be a pure color. Many tubes of paint are mixtures and already TINTS, SHADES OR TONES. Magenta was one of those colors that was already altered. It would not work with the HUE/TINT/WHITE painting, as I found out. I should have known in advance but it isn't always easy to see the subtle alteration of a color. Watercolor makes this idea more difficult because the TINT is created by adding water instead of white pigment. At what point does HUE become TINT? I don't really know but will use my best judgement. Another factor making watercolor so challenging for this project is the transparent nature of watercolor. With color glazing I am getting tones when I don't want them. An opaque paint such as acrylic would be much easier to create the effects. I struggle on! Above is my watercolor version of WHITE/TONE/SHADE.

Color can be parsed very mathematically but I am not interested in "exact". I am satisfied with "approximate". I am intriguied by the concept and the visual result of following these color design formulas. If I get a general approximation of the effect by following the guidelines, I am not going to stress over a minor infraction.

Just to complicate the matter further, consider the aspect of DOMINANCE. If there are three items to work with, they could be used equally or one could dominate and the other two could be very minor or one could dominate, one could subordinate and the third could be very minor....think "PAPA, MAMA, BABY" or two could be equal and the third could be minor. When you switch the players around into the different positions you see why one lifetime isn't enough to grasp it all!

I have set the challenge for myself to paint the same image using a different combination of HUE, TINT, WHITE, GRAY, BLACK, SHADE & TONE and see what it looks like. The more I understand the more I have a powerful tool to express my ideas.
I am not going to try for all the variations of dominance within each grouping.

Rhonda,is your head spinning yet ? Aren't you sorry you asked!