Color Journal

Warm Underpainting /imprimatura : An insistent warm underpainting will force you to cover the entire background with opaques. - You can paint a series of underpaintings before the session so they are dry and then prime them with oil priming. This allows the new paint to sort of float on the surface so that they don't mix with what is underneath. This helps to unify the piece. SKY PANELS: Similar to an underpainting this is a canvas with a sky painted on it before the actual painting so that the lines separating the sky from everything else stay crisp. Alla Prima-Starting with a blank canvas and completing the entire statement in one session. (How it should be done) -When using a pre-painted canvas you should oil-it-out so that it takes new paint well. -This also keeps the base coat from lifting off. If you don't remember or cannot anticipate which colors to use for the gradation, spend . a couple sessions just painting a variety of clear skies from observati...

Sky Blue: The Sky is not a flat, even blue. There are two overlapping systems of color gradations in  a daytime sky. Solar Glare: governed by the proximity to the sun. Horizon Glare: The angle above the horizon. Near the sun clouds have darker centers and light edges. (Left) (right) Lightest at the tops or centers. Darker at the sides and the bases Smaller clouds are not as white because there is not as much vapor to reflect light.  - Sky color gradates in value, hue, and chroma. These two systems interact with each other causing every patch of sky to gradate in two different directions at once.  - As we move from the zenith to the horizon, the sky generally tends to get lighter, because we’re looking through more atmosphere.  - As we approach the sun, the color gets lighter and warmer because a great volume of white light is scattered at shallow angles by large particles in the atmosphere.  - The point of the darkest, dee...

Transmitted Light: - When Sunlight travels through a thin, semitransparent material, the light becomes richly colored. Light that bounces off the surface is fairly dull by comparison. A, "stained-glass window effect" Explanation of light passing through the leafs of a cabbage plant: 1. Transmitted light, with intense chroma or saturation in the yellow-green range. 2. The leaf in shadow, facing downward. This is the darkest green, and would be even darker if it wasn't picking up reflected light from the adjacent leaf seen edge-on. 3. The leaf in shadow, facing upward. These ‘up-facing planes’ are blue-green, because they are picking up the blue light from the sky. 4. Sunlight reflecting off the top surface of the leaf. This is the highest tone or value, and the most textural, especially where it transitions to shadow. But the chroma is not very intense, because most of the light bounces off the waxy cuticle of the leaf. Subsurface Scattering: - Light enter...

The Form Principle: One of the things that I have noticed while reading this chapter of Gurney's book is the emphasis he places on doing things to stay true to the rules of light and color, but also the importance of giving your art the impact that it necessitates. One of the quotes that demonstrates this is, "Keeping the Core intact--or painting it in even if you can't see it--can give the form more impact." In the same section where he says this he also talks about how you do not have to draw in every single shadow texture when a plane is in full shadow. Half Shadow: In this section he says, "One way to create drama, especially with a vertical form, is to light the top half and lave the rest in shadow" Here again is the theme of impact and creative liberty. Occlusion Shadow: Shadows that occur wherever two forms touch each other or wherever a form touches a floor. Three-Quarter Lighting: This is the traditional lighting for portraiture art. A l...

James Gurney says, "We can't know for sure hiw one person sees the world compared to another, even if both have normal color vision." color blindness affects about 10% of the population. I think that these two statements are important things to know about others, especially those who will see our work, but I agree with Gurney that our role as artists is to share the world how we see it with others so thy can see it for themselves. The visual brain processes tonal information separately from color information. - Tonal pathway of thought interprets the where - Color pathway interprets thee what. Specifically, Gurney says moonlight, but it applies to any type of lighting, "Since we cannot escape the prison of our own senses, paintings by artists are the best a=way for us to share our personal perception of moonlight [insert light source.]." Moonlight questions: If moonlight is a neutral or reddish colored light, and if it is so close to the minimal thresho...