[Archived Class 1] Week Three - Theories of Colour

[Form]

Week Three Focus: Theories of Colour

Recapping Week Two:

Hey guys! Its really good to see those of you who are sticking with the class to be cruising along and becoming very productive. I have seen really rapid improvement over the course of only one week - and I hope that I have set the classes up in such a manner that they will inspire you to continue and educate yourselves over time. I have a feeling you will all be entering the professional arena over the next few years - and I hope we can keep in touch when you do.

Unfortunately a few people have left the class this week. The Lying Prophet and blinkythemouse have spoken to me privately about their reasons, and have left the class. The others have been removed due to their lack of participation in the class environment and not completing the tasks. I really am not interested in giving lectures - so i will just say that being able to hold up to your own promises and commitments is one of the most important factors of being a professional artist. So is being able to be honest with yourself about what you can commit to. The amount of times I have overcommited or gotten too in love with a job only to lose days of sleep and fall behind on other jobs. Its a really important one.

There are a lot of people messaging me about waiting list - I am adding these people to the list but be aware I will be drawing first from people who have posted along in the lurker threads. W

Welcome to the new members of the class Earendil, Chaosrocks and Robmorfin. I really hope you guys are serious about your commitment and can stick with it. I know some of you personally and am sure we will all benefit from your presence. I am waiting on a reply for the 4th new member, but I wanted to get the 3rd week underway.

As for recapping last week's content there was some seriously great discussion amongst you guys. Lets keep that up. You identified some important rules for establishing atmosphere and i was glad to see some of you integrating what you learned from week one into your week 2 production piece. It shows you are really paying attention :P Dont forget if you guys have more questions or ideas, the old threads remain open when they are unstickied, and conversation on those topics can continue there!

Week Three:

*Note* In Australian English we spell it COLOUR with a 'U' so you yanks will just have to deal with that, as difficult as that may be :P After all I have had to put up with these red zigzags under my words for years!

I have called this week's topic 'Theories of Colour' because i think it implies more closely what we can accomplish than 'Colour Theory'; which implies that there is a singular, formulaic approach to colour work that is more correct than another.

The first and most important thing to appreciate with colour is that it is ALL RELATIVE. I dont have the time in one week to eve skim the top of the iceberg of colour, and it is the most abstract topic we have covered yet. But what we can do is analyse the way other artists work with colours, and discuss some of the methods and theories they ascribe to, and through that we can begin to develop our own ideas on where we would like to take our own colour work. I feel like a bit of a fish out of water here - there are so many resources around our amazing forums and I'm BOUND to tread on the toes of some theorist, or worse, get something wrong outright. I will just try to stick to what i know. But forgive me if i make a terminological mistake!

Ok so lets start by talking about the basic elements of colour.

Lesson Begineth Hereth

The difference between additive and subtractive colour!

Ok to begin with - we http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Additive_color
Additive color - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedianeed to understand the difference between the terms additive and subtractive colour. Some of you may never have heard this before, but its an important simple distinction to make when you start working in multiple mediums.

Additive colour refers to the way we see colours produced by TV's, computer screens, projectors and so on. Additive colour begins with black (when your screen is 'off') and then EMITS light of different colours. This red, green and blue combination ADD to each other in different amounts to produce different light effects, all the way up to pure white. Because the monitor acts as a primary light source, we can get much brighter colours than with subtractive colour. Hence why if you have ever tried to print a painting with nice fluro glow effects you may have had a horrible altercation with your printer :P

Subtractive colour refers to the way we make colour when printing with inks, using dyes, or PAINTING. When we look at a white piece of paper, we are looking at a material that reflects ALL of the visible spectrum of the sunlight hitting it. When we put a paint or ink onto that paper, it ABSORBS or SUBTRACTS a specific part of the spectrum. So the light from the sun/room light or whatever travels through the paint, hits the paper, and bounces back out MINUS the part of the spectrum that the paint removed. Then as we add more paint, more parts of the spectrum are removed. That is subtractive colour.

So this becomes important when we paint depending on if we are doing it digitally or traditionally. Its why oil paintings are so highly valued - because there is a degree of craft in understanding the way your paint and canvas work and the amazing ways they interract with different light. Digital, however, can afford us an amazing range of possibilities.

Misnomers:

Oh so many :) The first thing that is essential to realise - as I mentioned - is the relativity of colour. The reason we can't pin down theories that always work is because colours appear differently in different contexts. There are three factors that affect the outcome of a given colour as observed from life.

1. The pigment/local colour - what the colour 'is' relative to other objects in the same lighting. Ie green grass, blue sky, red tomato.

2. Other objects. For instance that red tomato will look a different colour if it is placed on a blue table to if it is placed on a yellow table.

3. The Ambient light - a red tomato on a blue table will look different if lit by sunlight, or a neon light.

as these factors are always changing, it is impossible to say that 'a red apple should always have bluish shadows'. Because if it is placed on an orange table that theory goes out the window. What we CAN do is make observations of averages. For instance - the idea that colours get 'bluer' as they recede works in MOST situations, but not - as we saw last week - in sunsets, or heavy industrial pollution, etc. We are lucky as concept artists because we can construct some rules for ourselves that have a good chance of working. Painting true to life has a greater degree of challenge when it comes to colour accuracy.

It is important to demistify these misnomers - ideas about colour 'systems' that work, and rules that are essential. You just have to come to gribs with contextual colour. The other big misnomer is getting opinion mixed up with theory, and claiming certain colours 'clash' when that is in fact more about your own SUBJECTIVE opinion of the colours.

The human eye can see over 10 million hues, and every concievable combination is present in the world outside your window. You would never look at two colours in the street and say that they defy the laws of the universe - they simply exist. The question IS... do they work for your painting?

The elements of constructive colour.

Now we come to terminology used by us digital paintoids. To avoid confusion, I will be using additive/digital terms here. Any traditionalists amongst us should not be painting unless we can do our own research into the different terms between additive and subtractive methods ;)

I will be working on the assumption that you are painting in RGB (i dont know of anyone who paints in CMYK unless it is specifically for a print job, but if you are doing a print job you should know how to take your stuff to print. That is perhaps a class best left for another time).

The terms we will be using to control our colour are:

Hue
Saturation
Value
*Temperature (relative)

Hue is the pigment or local colour we are using. This is what we label as red, blue, green etc.

Saturation is the luminosity, or strength of that colour. In subtractive method it would be lowered by adding grey paint to the mixture. In digital work it is achieved by the monitor altering its emmission of light.

Value is how light or dark the colour is on a greyscale tonal system.

Temperature is a somewhat relative term derived from actual scientific properties of light sources (a 'hot' flame) but for the purpose of painting can be simplified (for now) to a relationship between colours which are warmer or cooler relative to each other.

We will also be discussing a selection of particular methods of using colours to achieve certain effects that add to our 'illusion of reality' we seek to capture in our paintings.

Counterchange is what happens when areas of colour in the same picture change at different 'paces'. Imagine a piece of red string in front of a wall. The left half of the wall is painted white, and the right half is painted black. On the left side, the red string appears darker than the wall, on the right (black) side, the red string appears lighter than the wall. That is counterchange oversimplified :)

Temperature heirarchies are about establishing relationships in your paintings between cools and warms with specific intentions (beyond just aesthetically 'liking' those colours).

Magic Greys is the term (used and perhaps coined by Vance Kovacs? Perhaps he got it from somewhere else) for using desaturated colours to create harmony and temperature balances. More on this later.

The emotion and Narrative of local colour

Colour post-processing your images

Due to the size of this topic, im not going to put all the info here in the first post. I think there is enough to contemplate already - and we will need LOTS of discussion this week to come - so please stay active.

I want to credit Richard Schmid for a paragraph or two in 'misnomers' because i couldnt remember them from the top of my head. I may have mentioned it, but his book 'Alla Prima' is an amazing resource for any painter... it taught me a LOT. We will leave it here for now... we will discuss more after the first part of the first task.

The study task this week will comprise of one activity split into two parts.

Study Task: Standing on The Shoulders of Giants

Your first task is to find 2 classical landscape/interior paintings and 2 contemporary digital paintings that you find inspiring for their colour. I want you to tell me AS MUCH AS YOU CAN about the colour they have used and HOW they have used it to achieve the communication of their message. You need to POST the paintings here along with your discussion so people dont need to browse 50 tabs looking all over the intarweb!

Once you have posted this, the second part of the task will be refining your observations as we unfold more about the techniques above and I will guid you through it. This is really all the same task - but you will get 2 marks on the marking sheet from me - one for your initial observations on the 4 paintings and one for your ongoing exploration.

Week Three Portfolio Artwork: Focus on Theories of Colour.

The Dreamscape

A motion picture director has come to you to previsualise an idea he has about a film depicting dreams. He has lots and lots of ideas - interiors, exteriors, panoramics.... all sorts of different dream environments. Fascinated by the mechanics of dreams, he points out how some people dream in black and white and others in colour.

" I really want to emphasise the difference between these two ways of dreaming. The black and white dreamers represent people who lead mechanical, boring lives. The colour dreams represent creatives and humanitarians and artists. So the colour should be really dramatic, and people should notice it consciously... we can even play with optical colour illusions if you want!"

You ask him what scene he would like you to paint - and he asks you to paint something from your own dreams. All he asks is that the treatment of colour is the top priority.

Within a week, you need to come back to him with a painting of an environment from your dream. You also have to provide to him an explanation of how you have worked with the colour - the theories behind it and what you wanted them to achieve.


Go for a pro mark this week guys! I think some of you are close :)

PLEASE READ THE DEADLINES. NO MORE EXCUSES.

[B]Deadline:
GMT + 10 (my time) = 5PM TUESDAY
GMT - 8 (pacific time) = 11PM MONDAY

As usual, there will be a mark for involvement level.

Good luck!!


PS. I have had my eyes checked and I will be good to see this through to the end and beyond. So I will be around a bit more this week. SO NO SLACKING! ;)

[Gundersen]

Ok guys, we got shorter time on this one, but we will manage fine ;) hehe!

Welcome to the new ones, dont be shy, and hopefully you stay til the end!

Sounds very interesting Form, Gonna start it up tonight, Tuesday is a horrible day for me, got lectures from 09:30 - 20:30 :P hehe

[D.Labruyere]

That's really a lot to read, which I'm not gonna do now, since I have a bus to catch in like 2 minutes.

Just wanted to say welcome to Earendil, Chaosrocks and Robmorfin! :)

[Earendil]

Thanks for the welcome guys! I would recommend downloading the picture first and opening it, before reading this long post so you aren't scrolling up and down all the time. :)

Albert Bierstadt - “Along the Sierra Nevadas” (Classical)

This is probably one of my most treasured landscape pieces! And after breaking it down, I'm just floored by this guy's abilities to construct a landscape. This piece uses great lighting/color contrasts, and graphic vectors which all work together to lift the viewers eyes up into the heavens which sheds benevolent light over the grandeur of nature/God's Creation. The golden sunlight works throughout this entire picture to connect all the elements back to the source in the top center of the picture.

Due to the heaviest saturation of green hues, the entire area on the lower right is immediately and easily distinguished as the foreground landscape, with the midground trees separated by some reddish/gold atmospheric haze, and slightly more desaturated green tones, both of which are mixing a little.

This mass is kept separate from the river which also separates itself readily, as one of the few areas with any sort of blue hues. Bierstadt uses a path of light on the river to help bridge the foreground and background, while at the same time grounding the river on a horizontal axis and giving some texture to an otherwise mirrored reflection of landmasses. The deer families (which contrast both value and colorwise) follow the ringed demarkation between land and river, around to the center, and point off to this path of light in the water.

The thin line of white reflected light helps mark the edge of the ground plane to the mountains, and also provides a sort of “border” between the water and land. It, like the path of light earlier, acts as a visual bridge between large sections, this time between the left and right sections. It also allows the small bank of trees near the foot of the waterfall to stand out in silhouette...why those trees are important, I'm guessing, to continue the horizontal divide in more interesting forms besides a flat edge. It also sneakily blends well into the overall division of 3 this painting has. If you slap the 3rds division lines, you have 3 major sections standing vertically, and 3 major sections standing horizontally. Those trees ARE continuing the lower 3rd line, but changing in order to fit the style of landmasses on the left 3rd of the painting! Bierstadt is nuts!

Now here's something interesting...If you look at the tops of the trees, you can see them clearly. Why? Because there's a big fat cloud bank sitting right behind them colored (desaturated) light GOLD. Green trees go “poink!” and pop right out. Graphic vectors come into play heavily here. Just look at those tree limbs, they're practically doing Vanna White to the heavenly light source! It's interesting. The tree on the utmost right stands straight to...help not get in the way of the edge of the frame...not rocking the boat per se...It too stands out, because it's being hit with orange light with a bunch of dense dark greens behind it. Amazing! AND as we progress towards the center the trees bow out and lean towards the left, their trunks pointed at the top left. That cloud bank behind them again, acts as border, so that when the mountains come up they too stand out against the almost monotone cloud bank. Delineation between large sections!

That waterfall just pops out too! White, surrounded by shadowed orange rock. It also helps that its reflection grows out of the horizontal white border. The whole arrangement forms a kind of cross of white coloring in the center. This structure of visual bridges also is the foundation for the rocks that clamber upwards into the background.

Bierstadt is crazy good here using swathes of “cloud shadows” and sunlight peeking through, and darkslightsdarkslights to layer large masses of rock formations in front of each other, but clearly defined by their value relationships to each other. He continues to desaturate and add haze the formations as they continue further back in space, until they form a bowl shape that helps support the ultimate section of golden clouds and light which provide the majority of lightest values in the entire piece. All visual roads lead to here.

The progression from dark to light, starts at the edges of the frame, and progressively goes higher in value to lead the eye to the brightest point. The other bright points in the picture, say “hey! Investigate me!” but also, using similar values and hues, connect themselves back to the center.

*whew!* :bashful:

[chaosrocks]

Well. To start....um by monday and tuesday I hope to goddessyou meen we get a week . not a couple hours. cause I didn't get this untill 10am tuesday morning.

A small intro as I am sort of new around here. I am Chaosrocks. I have been poking my nose into your classe ever since I talked Form into starting it. So I am to blame. I come to EWnvironments as a painter. I am a crappy typist. please forgive the typos.

I have done a fair amount of lanscape painting. usually Pleinair. But I have been winging it on observation rather than actually having a clue as to what I was doing. I hope to achieve a better foundation of theory and practice from this. as well as moving into digital media. I am goingto try to do my assigmnets in Painter. although if I get frusterated or behind, i will probably resort to tradtion techniques (Form dont worry to much about the "additive , subtractive terminology A. I can translate and B. I often paint on Black paper :P and C. I used to thinking in theater lighting).
I have taken a number of college classes in drawing, design, and painting, and I have a fair amount of practical experience as a graphic designer for print media. By Profession I am a costume designer, although I also do sets and Light (this class has practical application in set design actually).

so on with the assignment: as traditional painter my first admirable colour (see I spelled right...always have actually I jiggered Word so it would accept that spelling)234001
Mont Saint victiore By Paul cezanne
My admiration of cezanne stems from his handling of color. its seems so simple and yet is incredible effective at describing a sun drenched Southern meditereanian scene
you can tell that the land is dry and hot. the almost casual ease of integrating contrasting colours and the way he reflects the sky colour on to land. even though this doesn't have the "render or polish" that is the prefered mode here on Ca, the colour describs the scene perfectly. and look at that! the clouda are golden!? who whould have thought? yet it works perfectly.

a couple notes on the beirstadt... if you get a chance to see the original, by all means go. It's HUGE! I always reccomend seeing orignal work in ttrad media. because it can be so different.

thanks for inviting me Form
respecfully

crx

[Gundersen]

Earendil You talk alot about the picture, but you dont mention alot about the Temperature of the picture. Instead of going into details why you can see the trees so well, maybe you should talk more about how the picture is built up regarding to temperature, Saturation and values, what creates a focus point and so on ... just an idea :) hehe

[Agustin Poratti]

*pulls hair*

[Agustin Poratti]

ummm... i'm sorry, mr stupid here. so, we don't have to paint the black and white part, right? only the colour dreamscape? - i just wanna make sure

[Gundersen]

*EDIT added Colour maps afterwards, just to get an idea of colour use(Did not use these colour maps when i wrote about the images)*

Classical Paintings

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5b/Caspar_David_Friedrich_032.jpg

This is a great picture by Caspar David Friedrich. His main Hues seems to me to be Blue and some pinkish.... But mainly the Blue colour is the strongest one that dominates the picture. It gives the picture a very cold feel to the background. The reason why I say the background is that in the foreground the painter has added some more yellow colours. The clouds in front of the character as well as himself and the rock he is standing on has some small hints of Yellow, or a warmer Hue. This create a realy nice balance in the picture. The Colours in the foregound has a high saturation while in the back as we move into the landscape they get less and less saturated at the same time as they take the colour from the sky. You can also say that the Value in the front is darker then further on. I already mentioned temperature differences, how the yellow light gives a warm feeling in the front, but overall the blue colours dominates the picture and create a cold feeling to the image.

http://www.clicken.no/Thomas/Colour/Picture%205.png FOR SOME reason that image doesnt wanna show in the thread ... sorry

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http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a7/Caspar1.jpg

Another picture by Caspar, I think he is a great environmental painter. In this image he is using more warm and darker colours then in the previous one. His main colours seem to be a blend between Purple and Orange. The colours in the foreground is again warmer then the rest of the picture, it is almost close to a dark red colour in the front and the Value of is much higher. As we move into the picture the sea and ships takes up the colour from the sky aswell as the sun that is setting in the horizon. But the light from the sun is used mainly for details in the sea, while the ships seem to take up the atmospheric perspective colour changes from the sky colour. On the “ground” level from front to the horizon the colour goes from a very warm red colour, to a very bright but low saturated yellow colour. The sky is different, maybe its because of the sunset, but instead of going from Dark to light in the horizon, it goes the opposite way. The horizon is darker, and the sky closer to us is much lighter.
The dominating colour in the picture is clearly the purple colour, It create a warm and quiet feeling of mood.

http://www.clicken.no/Thomas/Colour/Picture%204.png
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Contemporary Paintings

http://www.fengzhudesign.com/envr/env_feng_image63.JPG

This is an image by Feng Zhu. I choose this since it was an interior shoot and that it shows some good use of colours. The image is built up by several light sources and that also gives it several colours. The main light souce is the gate in the front that casts a very bright yellow colour into the main part of the picture. But on the side there is a green light and also a saturated red one it seems like. The colour temperature of the picture is very warm in the main hall and while on the left side it is a bit colder, and that creates a contrast to where the painter wants you to look. There is a value change from the darker area in the front to the very bright colours in the front. The colours around the front gate also follows more the colour of the light So while the columns in the front have their own grey/greenish colour, the columns close to the gate takes more of the colour of the light source, and it becomes a very bright coloured area in the background. And actually if there wouldent have been the bright shooting/bullet beams that goes toward the main subject of the image, you would barely see him, since for me the gate is more what draws my eyes into the picture. The temperature of the picture is very warm in the front, and gets “colder” the longer into the picture we go, but the warm is deffenatly the dominating temperature aswell as colour.

http://www.clicken.no/Thomas/Colour/Picture%207.png
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http://www.fengzhudesign.com/envr/env_feng_image66.JPG

The second image is also by Feng Zhu. I really like this image in the way he uses colour, temperature, value and saturation to lead you into the image. Firstly the image is a blend of two main colours, you have the cool blue colour in the front and the much warmer yellow colour in the back. The yellow is ofc the sun and I think the idea of the blue in the front is shadows as well as from the water. But the blue colour in the front makes you look past it and into the image the first time you look at the picture. This is where I want to bring up the temperature changes. The front is cold while the middle ground is warm from the main light source. Then in the far far back there is some lightly saturated blue colours. The values are a little hard on this picture, but it seems like the brightest white and darkest black is in the foreground. In the middle ground there is a lightly saturated yellow colour. The value of the colour is low. But at the same time it turns out to be the main focus of the painting. The dominating temperature as well as colour in the image I would say it’s the cold colours, but at the same time it feels like a warm picture in the way he uses colours to lead your eyes into the warmer part of the city.

http://www.clicken.no/Thomas/Colour/Picture%206.png
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Some general observation from the pictures:

- Contrast using temperature differences creates interesting aspects
- All pictures have a dominating temperature, cold or warm
- Our eyes get drawn against the warmer areas if there are both cold and warm.(This might be a personal thing)
- Value changes as you go into the picture, The darkest black and the brightest white at the front.
- The further into the picture the less saturated the colour gets.
- The objects farthest away looses details and take up the main background colour
- The contrast between colours is always highest in the front part, even if the focus is further away
- The main light source determines the colour/temperature feel of the picture. NOT the colour that is used the most.

[Gundersen]

ummm... i'm sorry, mr stupid here. so, we don't have to paint the black and white part, right? only the colour dreamscape? - i just wanna make sure


I think thats up to how you judge the assignment :) I wanna explore with both elements in one picture

[chaosrocks]

yeah I kinda though about that too
in a wizard of oz kinda sense

[robmorfin]

Hi everyone, thanks for the welcome, I am so glad to be given the chance to be here.

I'm looking for the paintings right now and will post tonight.

I will introduce myself in the "Who we are" post.

Good to see you here as well Chaos.

[Agustin Poratti]

form i still want you to tell me as clear as posible if i have to go all-colour or what.. thanks man. gundersen kind of confused me there...

[Gundersen]

form i still want you to tell me as clear as posible if i have to go all-colour or what.. thanks man. gundersen kind of confused me there...

hehe sorry for confusing you but i think i was pretty clear :) If you read again what the assigment is you will see it pretty clearly:

"I really want to emphasise the difference between these two ways of dreaming"

And from there its up to you how you wanna emphasise the diffrence between the two dreaming worlds. As the assigment says the Art Director had many many ideas, and you where free to work on it. But i think the part i put in Italic there is important! :P

[Earendil]

Earendil You talk alot about the picture, but you dont mention alot about the Temperature of the picture. Instead of going into details why you can see the trees so well, maybe you should talk more about how the picture is built up regarding to temperature, Saturation and values, what creates a focus point and so on ... just an idea :) hehe

Hmm, I'll try and make that clearer. :bashful:

He DID say to tell as much we could. :)

[Agustin Poratti]

form , gundersen continues to confuse me, lol :). reply asap!

[Gundersen]

Hmm, I'll try and make that clearer. :bashful:

He DID say to tell as much we could. :)

Hehe it was just an idea Earendil :) You had written ALOT already so dont worry :P hehe

[chaosrocks]

234318

second historical painting
Corot's Orpheus

heheh it got atmosphere alright
but the primary thing I love about it is the delicate softness of the transitions. In a rather muted pallate, very nearly monochromatic, he is able to give the air a texture and palpabilty that is enchanting. The touches of warm colors at the tops of the trees and on the skin surface of the near figures manage to give them definition in a primarily soft focus world. teh one tiny spot of red brings attention to the main character even though he is very small in a large busy frame and looking away to boot

on a side note I learned more about foliage from Corot than from durn near any other painter. the way he has if making the light come throught the leaves so that the light is more solid than the leaves. made me look at leaves different;y

[Gundersen]

Chaosrock: Are you sure that he is the main character? I would say its the women behind him that has a bright light on her face/chest that stands out as the main character, being led by her lover or whatever out into the wild. While we dont see his face, we clearly see hers

[chaosrocks]

well it is titled "Orpheus" and he does have that red marker....but you do have a point there. perhaps I should have said the main characters Orpheus and Eurydice. I could write a couple paraggraphs about circular composition a etc..too but we're just looking at color right now .....

[Form]

guys you have the same amount of time as last 2 weeks.... 7 days tuesday to tuesday

just wanted to post that up before i read the work so far... in case i forget. ok going back to read what you have all done..... now!

[jodali]

I'm not absolutely sure if I am in the class, if I am, heres my input, if not I'll be happy to take this out.
I am very bad with colors so be understanding when I don't know what I'm talking about.

-Classical-

Caravaggio - The Taking of Christ
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m120/jdlfx/CAorg/carefs/Takingofchrist.jpg

Caravaggio seems to be my favorite painter from this period. his paintings are so life like and yet mean so much. In this painting, it seemed that he decided to go for a warmer color scheme, red seems to be the most dominant color, however there are also some cooler colors that are away from the main subjects (which I believe to be Jesus, Judas and the soldier. the saturated and bright colors really bring out the characters in this piece they are highly contrasted to the background which is really dark and undefined. I'm not quite sure what mood he intended with the colors but what I get from it is a real sense of chaos, action, movement, and somewhat tense. note the guy to the far left. The colors on the solider seem to be desaturated and cold, giving him a 'not so friendly' appearance. The overall value of this painting is very dark which I think leads to feelings of sadness and pain, maybe the sense of death.

J. M. W. Turner - The Fighting Téméraire tugged to her last Berth to be broken
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m120/jdlfx/CAorg/carefs/Turner2C_J_M_W_-_The_Fighting_TC3A9.jpg

This painting has some really interesting colors in it, having both warm and cool colors, which seem to mix effortlessly, there seems to be a very dark saturated area right near the sun, i don't know if this was done just to bring out some contrast to it or what, because I would have thought that main subject would be the ships. maybe it was put there to bring a little balance to the overall composition. the Ships have a high temperature contrast to their background. there are a lot of hue shifts all over including the clouds and the reflections in the water.


-Modern-


JOSE MANUEL OLI - Existence
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m120/jdlfx/CAorg/carefs/existence.jpg

with this image it seems that the colors are very cold, unsaturated. which leads me to believe that he was going for a distinct mood, I'm guessing that it would be questioning the need for her existence, or knowledge of her existence , I only say that because of the fact that she does not have a reflection. I'm not sure what the artist was going for. I am very fond of the subtle hue shifts in her skin, it seems to reflect everything in her environment.

Maciej Kuciara - Mountains
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m120/jdlfx/CAorg/carefs/52390_1101925438.jpg

this image has got a very cool temperature to it. I really like how the sky is a blueish gray and reflects that on the rocks, the rocks also have a ton of different hues and tones, lots of greens and tans. The overall composition is very interesting because the sky gives a crazy stormy vibe and yet the lower part is really calming. the entire image mostly consists of unsaturated colors, nothing really pops out. I also like when you look at this image, you cant really tell that your looking at a drawn image it looks like your actually there, looking at the environment.



images taken from wikipedia and cgtalk

[Form]

agustin: has to be full colour. The topic this week... is colour :P

[Form]

jodali: this is an environment class :P please post up environment paintings, not figurative stuff ;)

[Earendil]

"The Course of Empire: Destruction," by Thomas Cole, 1836

When first opening this picture, my eye was immediately drawn to the center and then to foreground right. The statue, with it's bright color values and larger size draws attention very easily. Large swathes of reds, blacks, and other deep colors add to the CHAOS :) of the scene. Patches of bright values draw the eye to investigate various areas, starting with the statue, through the crowds, to the foreground center activity of the soldier and woman. Her flung arms sweep us up to the bridge, but her tenous position also garners investigation of what's below her.

Overall, Cole does an excellent job of keeping things separated by their color values. Objects being lit by the sun stand out as the most desaturated light values of the piece. The saturated oranges, reds, blues, greens, and browns keep the human elements distinct. Sickly green and browns for the large clouds of smoke, and even the shadowed part of the statue help sell the idea of a diseased republic going up in smoke. Even the water of the port continues this theme with muddied blue, green, browns, that keep it separated, and also make the foreground fires and human activity contrast even more.

It's interesting that a large portion of the piece is the more pleasing blues off in the distance, and while I originally though the statue was the focal point, I'm going to change my mind now and say the distant blue on the horizon is the focal point. Why? To sell the idea that change will lead to more pleasant times. The republic is sick, it is being cured, and ahead in the distance, better times. The statue, in relation to this section, is striding boldly into it.

Overall, Cole is sticking to good use of atmospheric desaturation of hues as they go further back into space. Even the background buildings are getting hit with “pure light” which helps sell the “better times ahead” idea.

[jodali]

ah yes environments, sorry about that, let me try this again

Albert Bierstadt -The Rocky Mountains: Lander's Peak
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m120/jdlfx/CAorg/carefs/hb_07123.jpg

well this image would have to be another choice of mine. The colors in this range from both warm and cool, the mountains furthest in the background seems to be the most desaturated, as your eye comes down, the mountains become a little more saturated and become just a little darker in value. The midground is the darkest and the most saturated, but not fully saturated. most of the area in the foreground doesn't seem to be hit with any direct sunlight and seems dark. in the center of the painting there is a waterfall that is being hit by the sunlight and was the first place my eyes were drawn to. the are doesn't seem to be to saturated. it's value is very bright.

John Wallin Liberto - Temple
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m120/jdlfx/CAorg/carefs/15275_1098529765_medium.jpg

Once again in this image the furthest part away from the viewers position is the least saturated colors. and the value of this area seems to be a little brighter than other parts. As you move towards the foreground the mountains seem to get more saturated and darker in value. The building itself doesn't seem to be fully hit with sunlight. the sunny parts of the roof seem both lighter and desaturated, while the not-so-sunny parts seem slightly more saturated and a little darker in value. there seems to be some hue shifts in the color on the underside of the red roof, its mostly a darker maroon and become more 'orangeish' towards the edges (possibly an indication of reflected light from the environment instead of directly from the sun). the closest parts at the bottom are the darkest and most saturated except for the highlight on the plants, there saturation is very low. overall the temperature seems to be a little cool except for the building which seems to be warm.

[robmorfin]

1 of 4

Van Gogh Starry Night- colors used: yellow, orange, grays, purples, blue, green; Not solid colors, combination of few colors to create more complex color, not super colorful but very well combined, dark silhouette at front accentuated with lighter blue colors behind it,lighter colors in the middle church to create focus, different colors combined to create a strong feeling of texture, warm colors stop being warm by been combined & the other way around, few yellow hints few red, orange & purple hints, enough to give balance, variation & move your eyes around the painting.

[robmorfin]

2 of 4

Luca Carlervajis - "an extensive view of the molo, venice, looking towards the riva degli" - colors: browns, grays, blue grays, green grays, beige, maroon, red, oranges; As you look at it, it becomes more color rich & variated, it becomes a lot of grays connected to each other & creating a lot of depth in the picture, orange connected to each other in buildings and ground, at first seems to be warm, but in connection with the gray shapes it becomes cool, it amazes me the red hints in the people's clothing, steals just a tiny bit of your attention towards it but it spreads through the oranges & grays, sends you to the ocean blues through the grays towards the blue sky and to the grays of the sky.

[robmorfin]

3 of 4

Feng Zhu - Environment - Colors: Purples, browns, gold & yellow; From really cold colors to really warm, brown connecting purples and yellow, purples all around, dark purples and light purples create a fake a black & white feeling, purples around yellows going through pink cools the yellow temperature, big contrast of colors all around even though few are used.

[robmorfin]

4 of 4

Barontieri - Beach - Colors: Blues, greens, browns, orange, grays & purples; Great contrast maroon of spaceship against the blue sky, although connected with blue reflection on spaceship, blues reflected everywhere, browns connected creating shapes continuing the spaceship shape & direction, colors on background start to fade & get duller.

[Gundersen]

Nice work by everyone, where are all the old guys? All the new people are kicking our ass atm! :) hehe

Gonna take a while to read through all of this, So will have to do it in my lunch break later maybe :P

REALY nice to see activity!

[Earendil]

Philip Straub - “Where Fears Roam”

I love Feng Zhu, and I love Ryan Church, but Philip Straub is probably my favorite because he has a way of evoking an emotional response and mood via his color schemes. There's a very EVIL colour scheme being used here.

Blacks, dark greens, sickly yellow greens, and oranges make up the bulk of the clouds and landscape, and the majority of the image is painted with very dark values, making any lighter values reveal themselves more easily. Hellish red hues immediately draw the eye to the focal point of the tower, as they're the only bright red hues in the entire image, contrasting nicely with the darks of the somewhat-silhouetted tower. The bird on the left 3rd of the image, stands out against the dark clouds, and fits that area of the image because of the similar hues between it, and it's surroundings.

The darker red dots in the foreground subtly connect the foreground back to the tower, and because of the major value contrast between foreground and background, those spikes reveal themselves in full! That wouldn't have worked if say, the mist on the ground was too dark a value, then the spikes wouldn't have the starkness that you see here.

Straub does something interesting with the cloud colors. They have more saturation than the mist on the bottom, or in the background mountains, despite the fact that the cloud layer is probably the same distance, or even further away. This is obviously meant to designate the cloudscape as an important visual character; a fell light casting poison upon the whole scene. The sun cannot reach into this area, without becoming twisted up, and Straub shows us this through muddled hues, becoming more defined towards green as the light passes further into the eviiiil landscape.

[robmorfin]

- but you will get 2 marks on the marking sheet from me - one for your initial observations on the 4 paintings and one for your ongoing exploration.

Form, what do you mean by one for your ongoing exploration?

I'm glad everything went fine with the optometrist yesterday.

[robmorfin]

where are all the old guys?

Old ones in age or in this forum?

[Gundersen]

hehe the ones not new :)

Btw about the marking, I think he will now write what we should look more into, and we get a mark on that aswell, how we continue our research to find out even more .

[Earendil]

Ryan Church - “Hi-tech Architecture Concept”

I still love Church too! This one is one of my favorites for the variety of the colors used, and the amount of variation too.

Atmospheric perspective is in great play here, as a golden haze from the sun obscures the distant buildings on the left, and because of even more atmosphere and smoke/steam the color shifts to a more reddish haze in the background on the right.

The foreground elements are the most saturated, and the reddish orange of the right, draws the eye due to the contrast of hues. There's also a distinct difference between the city lights and the environmental light. The city lights are more neon and artificial, and help separate the constructed masses apart from the er...unconstructed ones. It also helps that the overall values of the buildings are dark, so the lights are more noticeable.

The hanging buildings, throughout the shift of colors in the sky, have relatively darker values that help bring the mass forward in space. With haze and values alone, Church establishes the relative position of the buildings in space.

[Gundersen]

Ok i figured id post my WIP for my idea to get some early imputs from some people! :)

My basic idea is the Chrystal that represents the dream of artists, a artifact that humans have been searching for for ages. And now that they have found it they have started excavaiting it. And the darkness of the walls and the people around it represent the dark mechanical dreams of the rest of the people..... The Chrystal will shine in a very bright colour, colouring up most of the place. While you have the colours of the lamps of the diggers going from top to bottom.

Does the idea make any sense???

So first i did a quick thumb of some sketches, then i have desided to go for a diffrent perspective, more similar to the sketch on the top right. where instead of looking from the side, you look from the top and down towards the bottom..

http://img230.imageshack.us/img230/2068/uplload1tb2.jpg

[chaosrocks]

http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e181/chaosrocks/temple_scarp.jpg

3 of 4

temple scarp.
by "Hipper"

another temple. But this struck me because of its colour use the striking ornate detail in crisp saturated colours against the misty yet dramatic grey and green background. so much of the impact of this is based on the contrast of complementary colours especially the red/green dyad. up to and in cluding the bright green frieze on the foreground building and the use of greens and reds in the frontground bush. Of course you have your decreasing saturation for aerial perspective (or atmospheric perspective as it is sometimes called)

gunderson. the idea makes sense. the sketches are a little hard to decypher. um and Crystals (not matter how you spell them) while fun to draw are kinda done to death (remind me to show you the city based around a crystal I did for a now defunct indy game. shudder. some time when we are in true-confession mode). in any case. if you are planing to use this Icon. It needs to be something unique. also. Is this based on a real dream? of yours? if so you read to many fantasy novels...:P) It is my interpretation of the assignment that we actually use one of our own dream images....

[Gundersen]

I am one of those that never remembers my dreams, so i interpedate the assignment a bit diffrent .. well well will see how it goes :P

But yes i read a ton of fantasy novel, and i base the assignment more on a day dream kind of... How to discover something magicaly

[chaosrocks]

http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e181/chaosrocks/city_building.jpg

City Building
by "Hipper"

as you can see. I hit this guy's file and never left it. I don't have vast experience with gaming which is the primary source of Digital environments. Although I do go to a lot of movies. (wry laugh) but usually I am so engrossed in the movie that I am not aware whether the scene is digital or not... Its all real to me. But I digress... (as I so often do)

The clour use in this piece is subtle and desaturated Like the Corot. whereas that is done in primarily cool colours this is almost entirely a warm pallete. The tones fade subtle from warm to cool as you get farthur way. this can be seen particularly in the shafts of sunlight although the shift is only sligth from pale yellow to pale silver. Again like the Corot a small spot of red draws the eye to the main subject.

I was going to put my sketch here but I couldn't make it share the same post...

[chaosrocks]

I guess if we are sharing WIPS. I'll post this. I know the perspective is wonky. It is based on a dream. and the dark industrial elevator, and the bright classical scene represent the juxtaposition of the bright and the dark ways of dreaming. (I plan to drop the building and elevator into total grey scale.)
234880

the stairs are the main problem.
I really need to stop thinking of environments as a stage set. But thats where I use them

[Agustin Poratti]

form: "You ask him what scene he would like you to paint - and he asks you to paint something from your own dreams. All he asks is that the treatment of colour is the top priority."

ok, people, i'm sorry if i'm wrong i don't think we have to portray a juxtaposition of the B/W and colour dreaming BUT paint something from our own dreams. you don't even have to mention the black and white dreaming stuff... it's only about a very nice dramatic colour dreamscape... i THINK that's what form meant with all that art director mambo jumbo

[Agustin Poratti]

meaning unless you do dream about the differences between B/W and colour dreams, wich is unprobable you're not going to paint about that... but something original, dreamy, and with a special care in colour....

am i wrong?

[robmorfin]

I am pretty sure we need to make a colorful one, that's what this week is about, anything you can imagine is kind of a dream, don't try to dream it tonight when you are sleeping, also, we all have had colorful dreams that we can recall, but just close your eyes and focus on it, it'll come to you.

Gundersen, what are the colors that the crystal & the lamps will emit, it'll be very dark in there and then you will have only the ground/walls color, the light color themselves and the light colors mixed, maybe you want to add other colored elements or different crystal colors.

[robmorfin]

" I really want to emphasise the difference between these two ways of dreaming. The black and white dreamers represent people who lead mechanical, boring lives. The colour dreams represent creatives and humanitarians and artists. So the colour should be really dramatic, and people should notice it consciously... we can even play with optical colour illusions if you want!"

You ask him what scene he would like you to paint - and he asks you to paint something from your own dreams. All he asks is that the treatment of colour is the top priority.

I take it back, I understand now that the Director wants us to show both approaches (b&w/color) in the same environment to show the difference between boring and cool, that's what I will try.

[Gundersen]

robmorfin: The crystal will shien strongly :)

AND you dont have to show the contrast between B&W and Colour, Form says in an reply on page one "COLOURFULL IMAGE"

hehe

Chaosrock You realy need to check the perspective of your painting, its very off atm.. :P But keep working!

[Agustin Poratti]

JESUS CHIRST PEOPLE you dont have to show B/W stuff!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
the goddamn art director is just GIVING YOU BACKGROUND on the project he is directing when he says "I want to emphasize the difference, ETC", AFTERWRADS you ask him what does he want YOU to paint and he SAYS "PAINT SOMETHING FROM YOUR DREAMS - MAKE COLOUR TREATMENT A PRIORITY"

does that means you have to SHOW the difference between B/W and COLOUR dreams in your picture???? NO it DOES NOT

god, im going mad... sry

[robmorfin]

JESUS CHIRST PEOPLE you dont have to show B/W stuff!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
the goddamn art director is just GIVING YOU BACKGROUND on the project he is directing when he says "I want to emphasize the difference, ETC", AFTERWRADS you ask him what does he want YOU to paint and he SAYS "PAINT SOMETHING FROM YOUR DREAMS - MAKE COLOUR TREATMENT A PRIORITY"

does that means you have to SHOW the difference between B/W and COLOUR dreams in your picture???? NO it DOES NOT

god, im going mad... sry

LOL!..

[Agustin Poratti]

ok, here's stage 1 of my study tasks


-------------------------------------------------------------
Mariano Fortuny Marsal Fantasy about Faust
http://img107.imageshack.us/img107/2419/fortuny1vw7.jpg

in this painting by Fortuny, colour is playing a very important role. it's reinforcing the division between reality and fantasy already set in the picture's theme.

let's look at the picture in black and white:

http://img219.imageshack.us/img219/9739/fortuny2ow8.jpg

everything gets flattened, and one may even be a bit confused about what's going on.

however, in the original colour version, everything seems to work out well. we can easily understand the idea. let's see why.

i'd divide the picture in three basic zones. or maybe in zone A, and zone B - made up of part 1 ,2 and 3:

http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/9064/fortuny3ws9.jpg

if we trace a diagonal from top left right corner to bottom left corner we can get the division im speaking about.
zone A being to the bottom right part, is made up of very dark values and mostly desaturated hues, browns, reds, there is some more saturated yellow in that framing, but packed together, the whole zone gives a very 'heavy' and real impression. warm values dominate the zone.
as we cross this diagonal, and by use of greens and blues, still mixed with warms to produce harmony along this tremendous leap, we enter into zone B. zone B contains 3 important things worth noticing.
if we look at the left bottom corner of the picture, we'll find this 'dead zone' or gray zone (part 3) mixing up with the darks from zone A. this whole part is kept gray to avoid losing attention from the eye of the viewer (this part isn't but a desaturated extension of the next part we'll discuss).
moving up and sideways, there's this bird connecting the gray zone with the most important part of the picture, we can call it part 1. ruled by mid values, it has the strongest both in value and colour contrast/complement. the saturated reds of the figure smashed against that green-blueish background. you just want to look at it, and take small breaks to discover the rest of the picture, returning as much as possible to breath fresh air inside this zone.
to the left, and losing detail and contrast, we have part 2 of this zone. higher in value, but lacking the contrast to fight part 1. in the figure, the red-against-bluegreen thing is revisited, but at a way lower volume than in part 1. around the figure there is some dancing of cold and warm, generating a little something for the eye to chew at.
----------------------------------------------------------


N.C. Wyeth The giant

http://img119.imageshack.us/img119/58/wyeth1sb9.jpg

in this illustration, by Wyeth, colour is helping again divide natural from supernatural.

even though the picture makes some sense in black and white,

http://img456.imageshack.us/img456/8572/wyeth2it9.jpg

colour is a way to strengthen what the artist (may have) wanted to portray.

we can divide this into zone A and zone B.

zone A being the beach, waves and the kids, is but a fraction of the size of zone B, being the giant and the clouds. however the constrast and treatment of colour is doing the trick to make zone A pop out.

zone A is ruled by warm, mostly saturated hues, containing a lot of local colour and clarity. whilst zone B features mostly cold, desaturated values, and the figure is a clear victim of atmospherical effects. hues on this zone tend to Bgrey out and mix up with pinkB as they get closer to zone A, in order to soften out the transition from one zone to the other (mix with pink) and to further empower the elements of zone A (for greys cant put a fight against those saturated primaries)

here's this, simplified:
http://img50.imageshack.us/img50/4149/wyeth3kb6.jpg

if we keep analyzing this picture in a more subjective manner, we could say that subscounsciously, elements containing more local colour and constrast may seem more real than elements built off greys, atmosphere colours, and low constrast. so, this could had been another reason for the artist to make such decisions.
-----------------------------------------------


Justin Sweet "lucynewhorse" (?)
http://img210.imageshack.us/img210/8788/sweet1ip1.jpg

in this rather speedy painting by sweet, a picture that could had been eerie and desolated in B/W,

http://img360.imageshack.us/img360/6080/sweet3al5.jpg

transforms, through the use of hues and palette, into a very warm and comfortable place to look/be at.
the whole picture is built off warm tones, reds, umbers, some pink, all kind of yellows and sienas, touching the colds only in the greenish lightblue of the sky and the yellow greens of some trees, wich actually look a lot more like shades of siena.
http://img360.imageshack.us/img360/4205/sweet2ej9.jpg
colour is having different uses.
one is to breathe life into the idea of a peacefull, warm-looking natural place.
but, if we look again at the B/W version, and compare to the colour one, we can see how colour is the tool used to turn those masses of value into different bushes and trees.
last, we can say that the lower part of the painting is treated in pretty much desaturated colour, to generate interest on the upper part. and the figure is given some of the brightest colours and values.
------------------------------------------------


Craig Mullins 'boarding' (?)
http://img210.imageshack.us/img210/3373/mullins1vv0.jpg
this painting by mullins is a colourfest. we could broadly say that there is a big mass of cold tones to the left and another mass of warms to the right. however, in the middle of these, and all across the picture, there is a lot of mixture and we can find the most peculiar colour situations. the goal of this is to enliven the picture as much as possible. no matter where we look at, we always find this cold/warm, saturated/desaturated, bright/dark articulations saving the picture from dullness. if we look at this mosaic, we can see that it's the greys really making the picture, it's also easier to see what i see about left and right:
http://img216.imageshack.us/img216/8319/mullins2ig6.jpg

i personally feel i could stare at this piece for a long time before getting tired of it. that's because of the colour treatment. there's so much to look at besides the objective theme of the picture. and even if you tear apart the 'literal' out of it, colour makes it through:
http://img216.imageshack.us/img216/2822/mullins3hd2.jpg
also, if you know Mucha, you may agree with me this is a very "The Slav Epic" colour palette.

[D.Labruyere]

ok, first the traditionail paintings, I actually picked 3 instead of 2. The first 2 are both Dutch painters, and the other one is a French impressionist. I picked a third one since the third one uses his color quite differently then the first 2.

http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a131/haldor/Goyen_Jan_van_View_of_Dordrecht.jpg
Artist: Jan van Goyen (1596-1656)
Title: Gezicht op Dordrecht (view of Dordrecht)

The first one I picked was a dutch painter during the golden age (17th century). He painted a lot of dutch landscapes during his live. I picked this one, both because I think it is a brilliant painting, and also because it is the city where I am born.

The colors in this painting contain a lot of browns, with here and there a well hidden blue (For example the sky) and a tiny bit of red (The red on the flags). Though I think you can almost say that he used only brown tones. I also think he used a tiny bit of purple in the shadows, though I wouldn't be completely sure about that.

The colors he used aren't very saturated though the value of the colors go from very dark (As can been seen on the ships and in the foreground) to very light (as you can see mostly in the left parts of the clouds). The colors are more saturated in the dark parts then they are in the light parts, and also get more saturated the closer they get to you.

I think that this painting works as an whole with the colors is because it is almost equal all around with it's hue. Though the same color is used almost everywhere it doesn't look boring because the big differences in Value.

He used a lot of warm colors in this picture.

I don't know exactly what he wanted to convey with the painting but to me it looks like he wanted to give a bit of an autumn mood to it, using a lot of browns and put behind the clouds a blue, which looks even more "cold" because it is quite complementary (someone has to tell me once how I have to right this word right in english) with all the other warmer tones throughout the painting.

I would say that time-wise he tries to show us something 30-60 minutes before it gets dark. This because of the much lighter colors left of the horizon, which gives to us the idea that the sun is standing very low. Also the long shadows on the water help to confey that idea.

The picture gives a relaxed atmosphere, despite the rough see. I think this is because of the lack of contrasts in the hue, and only subtle contrasts in saturation.

Ok, I think that's all I can see atm for this painting.

My next tradititional painting I picked is:

http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a131/haldor/Meindert_Hobbema_The_avenue_middelh.jpg
Artist: Meindert Hobbema (1638-1709)
Painting: Het laantje van Middelharnis (The avenue of Middelharnis)

Another dutch painter from the same period. This is also why I will adding a third painting who uses quite a different technique of colors. After having gone through the city I was borned, I present you now, the village I grew up in :)

As a contradiction compared to Goyen, he uses a bigger range of colors, and so the painting has more hue in it compared to the other one. Though not color-wise but horizon and set-up wise you can see a relation between both painters. As common with the dutch painters during the 17th century, the landscape has a low horizon and lots of clouds above it.

But to get back to the colors. As I already said, it has a lot of hue in it, though the picture isn't very saturated. He has added a lot grey to his colors. Again the value shifts again from almost black to a lot lighter on the road and in the sky.

So instead of having the hue on the same level almost all the time the saturation is on the same level almost all the time, which I think is the biggest difference between this and the other painting.

He creates space in the picture color-wise by making the colors darker in the front and lighter in the background. And also the darker colors are more saturated then the lighter colors.

I think he used the red on the roofs of the building to spice things up.

Ok, now for my last traditional painting:

http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a131/haldor/renoir_the_path_through_the_long_gr.jpg
Artist: Renoir (1841-1919)
Title: The path through the long grass

Well what can I say. Renoir = color. He uses a huge amount of colors, which probably most we won't even see on a picture this small.

The picture consist mostly out of warm colors, except for the trees and the people's clothing, and some purple shadows here and there.

Though you can see quite darker and quite lighter colors, I don't think that overall there is a big contrast between them. Most of the shadows and contrasts are made by making use of complementary colors, which aren't only used to create shadow but also to give the whole painting color-wise a bombardic effect.

From the yellow in the grass we go straight to the purple in the sky. From the red flowers to the green leaves. You can even see orange on the path which again stands in contrasts with the blue spots which you see best with the trees at the left side of the painting.

There has been no black used in this painting.

Ok, well this were the 3 traditional paintings I picked. I will do the 2 digital later on. I'm surprised how much time this took me, and how little I actually have put down. And from what I've put down I have the feeling more then half of it, is wrong. Well, it is a good excersise. That's for sur :)

-Daniel

[rvdtor]

http://img139.imageshack.us/img139/4992/thmfredericchurchthewreoh8.jpg
frederic church

if there's anything i like more than trees and clouds in landscapes is water...so im a big fan of seascape...i grew up by the sea too so maybe that's part of the influence. anyway to the colors....there is an overall warm temperature in the piece, the warm hues in the upper part of the painting complement the cooler colors in the water in the foreground. your eyes are taken straight to the middle area lit up nicely bye the unsaturated yellow hues. there's an immediate break from the dark water being lit directly by the sunlight , the contrast helps with the illusion and sillhouettes the ship. the higher saturating here with the darker colors draws the eyes then to the water scape on the lower left corner. the darker hues with the contrasting highights while still mixing in the hues from the sky give great form to the waves. the lighter blue hues on the upper left and the constrasting clouds in the far distance lit up directly by light tie it all together.
water is very interesting i thi nk because of how it plays with color from allthe surroundings not only from whats above but what's below it as well.

http://img139.imageshack.us/img139/6089/bartonwt1.gif
barton

this scape just wowed me, my eyes went directly to the center right of the image because of the warmer colors where the water is being hit directly by sunlight probably from directly above tho the sun has to be behind cloud cover, the bluer hues on the left of the water and the clouds and sky create more of a contrast in the center and the saturated foam on the wave fronts bring the effect to its maximum. the closer rocks and branch have warmer hues and more saturation as seems to be the case with the other studies you guys made. the far right being less saturated, the left being a completely shifted in hue and feel concentrates everything to the middle.

http://img112.imageshack.us/img112/9629/epicafinalsu7.jpg
edwin rhemrev

very unsaturated colors tho the heavy black in the lower left corner is a bit too flat i would think although it does give the illusion of being completely in shadow and the lighter hues in the waterfall and rock face behind it. keeping with atmospheric perspective the saturation lowers as it goes further with the last towers. the bright lights form the windows and doors give great contrast and pull the eyes to investigate each one. in the center the contrast between the figure and the waterfall make it tand out. the highlights on the rocks and the pole and difference in hues and values give the light source direction. so overall its has a grayer tone as it draws further back.


http://img266.imageshack.us/img266/6835/1522031187092273mediumej5.jpg
Marcin Jakubowski

the great thing about this image is the contrast between the saturated blue sky and orange from the structure...the top center portion is where my eyes go first, the parts being naturally lit. i think his use of darker hues in the lower levels and on the forground images adds to the effect. the colder shadows and the warmer colors on teh building just make pop out even more. of course less saturated blues and oranges are used to give texture to the building. atmospheric perspective keeping witht he hues and blending them gives the desired effect of distance.
also the light source coming from the ship the saturated blue draws the veiwers vission there and the lit smoke and uderside of the ship give it a great effect using contrast.




well thats it for me my four studies tho im sure i didn't give some of these paintings justice.

since this is a learning thread i'd like ot ask some quesitons u know to discuss and stuff...im not very good at value and hues and stuff like that cause i never studied it before.
for the last picture with the space ship...ok would it be right in saying the pictures has blue hues, orange hues touches of green and maybe some purple. in values the distant objects in orange hues have lower value than the forground orange? and the blue hues have less values in the shadow of the object? also the shadows appear cooler because of the warm color in the main building? the main building has more saturated oranges and the shadow is unsaturated blues? is that right? i mean its harder to grasp the concept of value and saturation effectively with only words but if there are pictures like we're doing it more effective i think.

[chaosrocks]

you know,I work for theater directors
and some times, its cool to give them MORE than what they actually asked for .
asa costume designer I love talking to my directors to see where they are coming fromm . and trying to see if what i can give them is more than what they expected. maybe even pushing their ideas into new directions. ou dont have to take what an at director says as gospel. but you do have to take what they say. If you want to make some thing new of it. you better be able to sell it really well.

[Gundersen]

Alot of nice studies by people here, I havent read through all of them yet, but I am working on it :)

Its been quiet here for a while now, and i thought about bringing up some general discussion regarding colour theory.

So here are some loose question to make people think maybe..
- Is colour contrast most efficient in temperature contrast or direct colour contrast?
- What is the main purpose of colour in an image?
- Can colour save an image from being bad?
- What do YOU think is the best way to use colour? Do you prefere to put down the main colour first, or do you put down the contrasting colours?
- Can the use of Temperature changes be used to create a focus point?

There are many things you can say about colour i guess, its a pretty hard topic to study, and for me i learn the more i think about it and look at other images. But also by experimenting with what works and not.

Colours in an image doesnt need to represent reality for me, I like to use colours in a more freely way to represent a certain mood and feeling in the picture. Thinking more in the way that I dont need to paint a skyscraper nececarely grey cause thats the most common colour, but depending on what the mood of the city is gonna be you can experiment with colours. It might represent the cold environment of liveing in a big city that some people experience, and it might be better then to use cold colours more in the direction of blue to represent this.

This topic is probably one of the hardest one we have. There are so much you can explorer here:
- Colour conttrast
- How colour works in light and shadow
- Temperature contrast
- What colours create certain temperatures
- What colours creates feelings and moods of an image

Here is what some countries say about diffrent colours: (Information is gathered from diffrent sources)
Wester culture
Blue, Red, White and Grey = Stability, Power, Trustworthiness, Conservatism
Yellow, Brown, Orange, Green = Nature, earthiness, warmth
Red, Orange, yellow = more warmth
Blues and Aquas = water and coolness
Primary colors (Red, Blue, Yellow) = Convey fun

Asian culture
Red: Happiness, marriage, prosperity
Pink Marriage
Yellow: Against evil, for the dead, geomantic blessings
Green: Eternity, family, harmony, health, peace, posterity
Blue: Self-cultivation, wealth
Purple: Wealth
White: Children, helpful people, marriage,
mourning, peace, purity, travel
Gold: Strength, wealth
Gray: Helpful people, travel
Black: Career, evil influences, knowledge, mourning, penance, self-cultivation

This show how we look diffrently on several colours in the west and the eastern parts of the world. Also if you look at this colour has alot to do with Psycholigal effects from person to person. Two people might look at the same paintings and get diffrent feelings from it. There are several pages on internet where you can read about how colour have an effect of psychologicaly. Like here: Wikpieda: Color (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_symbolism_and_psychology).

Here is also an image to show the difference in colour temperature
(Taken from: Here (http://www.mediacollege.com/lighting/colour/colour-temperature.html))
http://www.mediacollege.com/lighting/colour/images/colour-temperature.gif

Any input on this guys/girls?? :)

[daldbaatar]

Hi guys. Long time no see. Here is the first assignment I did. I’m seeing some pretty good explanations on some people. But as we do know that we come at a common ground in the end on theories. I really appreciate our classmates' efforts. And i did learn a lot on seeing at picture, as for example: how to use mosaic effects and desaturation to further make examinations at picture, find and look at compositions...and gundersen's hints and tips view on colors in different cultures, how to use color picker effectively to make custom color palletes etc. Thanks guys. My english isnt that well so please be humble if i write anything wrong or unlogical.

http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/9086/800pxcaspardavidfriedrivk5.jpg
Caspar David Friedrich “the Polar sea”
This painting took my attention because of the colors and lighting. As u can see there are so many hues and values mixed in making it so colorful. But it doesn’t have much saturation. The basic colors are mostly cool colors. As blue, tan, green and browns. This affects the picture’s atmosphere overall coldness.
The background gets more cooler and less contrasted as it gets further. And the sky looks so cloudy. But there is a little sunlight passing in to the center. The sunlight position is made clear by more lighter colored clouds. But the light colored clouds are still greyish. The painting takes the viewers’ eyes directly at the center. Because the contrast of light and dark and I think there seem to be slightly higher saturation of colors there. And It also stands out from other areas like background and foreground. For the foreground the painter used more darker colors and less saturations.

http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/5527/colethomaslallegro28itajx1.jpg
Thomas Cole “L’Allegro”

This painting has more lighter colors and warm tone. The overall tone looks ochre yellowish. As u can see this painting has 4 perspective levels. So let me start from the most farthest.
As for the sky and far away mountains it still kept the warm colors. But as u see the mountain in the far back end it looks violet and that means the color went cooler and the color of the sky affected it greatly ( it reminds me of Form’s saying : as these factors are always changing, it is impossible to say that 'a red apple should always have bluish shadows'. Because if it is placed on an orange table that theory goes out the window. ). And it looks less contrasted and the details are near zero.
As for the 3rd mid ground the saturation is low, and less contrast making it look that there is a lotta air atmosphere. As for the shades in the mountain it doesn’t have blue tone but went more grey dark.
2nd mid ground becomes more contrasted and higher saturations as it come close. Even thou the tree and hill are both green the heavy dark shadows in the trees make it easy to separate. An this also applied for the ruins too.
The foreground is the most contrasted and most saturated part in the picture. It has more warmer colors. And the grass are affected strongly by it and looks almost yellow ( well yellow green of course ). Since we know the overall tone it doesn’t look yellow. But the artist put the most high saturation, contrast and lightness on the people in order to make it the first thing we will see. The grass and ground on the front right of the picture has lost its colors a bit, due to shadows cast over them.

http://img229.imageshack.us/img229/3074/80741147602145largefu1.jpg

Matthias Verhaselt
Here is another great example. It was mostly done with cooler colors because of the setting. The setting is in a misty area and mountainous, making it rich with shades and grey tones. The same thing also happened here is that the further it goes the cooler and close to the sky of the color it gets. And of course less contrasts. Mist sure does it’s thing. But also I think the strength sunlight has great effect on the saturation of colors itself.
http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/8800/drs77er1.jpg

Final fantasy
I think this was a concept art. I was just shuffling through my collection of digital arts and stumbled upon this one. I don’t know who did it…it doesn’t matter anyways.
The haze in the air has made significant effect on this one as you see ( same as mist – I hope you remember when I spoke about dryness and humidity effects in the last week’s class). The haze is actually the color of the sky it seems. And it had blurred out most of the part and lowered the contrasts. As the objects get further away it’s colors have became more similar to the color of the sky and cooled down. We can see that the closer ground looks bit more warmer and slightly high in contrast of values and saturation.

Soon i will post the "Dream" work

[jodali]

Here is what some countries say about diffrent colours: (Information is gathered from diffrent sources)
Wester culture
Blue, Red, White and Grey = Stability, Power, Trustworthiness, Conservatism
Yellow, Brown, Orange, Green = Nature, earthiness, warmth
Red, Orange, yellow = more warmth
Blues and Aquas = water and coolness
Primary colors (Red, Blue, Yellow) = Convey fun

Asian culture
Red: Happiness, marriage, prosperity
Pink Marriage
Yellow: Against evil, for the dead, geomantic blessings
Green: Eternity, family, harmony, health, peace, posterity
Blue: Self-cultivation, wealth
Purple: Wealth
White: Children, helpful people, marriage,
mourning, peace, purity, travel
Gold: Strength, wealth
Gray: Helpful people, travel
Black: Career, evil influences, knowledge, mourning, penance, self-cultivation

This show how we look diffrently on several colours in the west and the eastern parts of the world. Also if you look at this colour has alot to do with Psycholigal effects from person to person. Two people might look at the same paintings and get diffrent feelings from it. There are several pages on internet where you can read about how colour have an effect of psychologicaly. Like here: Wikpieda: Color (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_symbolism_and_psychology).

Here is also an image to show the difference in colour temperature
(Taken from: Here (http://www.mediacollege.com/lighting/colour/colour-temperature.html))
http://www.mediacollege.com/lighting/colour/images/colour-temperature.gif

Any input on this guys/girls?? :)


As for what the different parts of the world think of what colors mean to them, that can always cause some problems because what one person sees in an image, just because of the colors, that will be totally different from what the next person will feel or see. I've always wondered if there was a set of rules for putting colors together like red and green or yellow and blue. These are just random, but is there some way out there that to effectively combine colors in a painting that will give a certain sense of emotion to anyone. and pretty much transcend certain eastern and western sociological influences.

About that color table, I have seen that before and it has always confused me when it has to do with colors. According to that, the bluer something the warmer it is (10,000k), and the more red it is the cooler it is (1,000k) but thats just my interpretation, but this seems backwards to me, with this if your temperature number is higher that means warmer. I thought that cool temperatures were blue (like ice or water) and warm temperatures were orange, red (like a fire)

on my monitor, there are different color settings (hitachi CRT);
9300k 6500k 5000k
9300 being more blue-ish and 5000 being more orange-ish.
this seems to go with that color table

this monitor was originally set up to adobe's color settings. they give you that little picture with the greyscales and all the different colors, and you have to go thru that process with adobe, changing all the settings on the monitor.

Anyway these are just my thoughts, it would be great to here what you guys think.

[Earendil]

We covered color temperature in astronomy class, it relates to the colors given off based on burned energy.

Some stars are blue/white and have a high color temperature of ...10,000,000+Kelvin, but don't quote me on that.
Some stars burn red/orange and have a lower color temperature of ONLY 7,900,000Kelvin.

Incandescent light bulbs "burn" at about 5600Kelvin so they have lower color temperature, while the brighter, whiter, bluer (remember why the sky is blue?) light from the sun outside is a higher color temperature of around...what was it...8700? 7800?

Did this help at all? :dead:

EDIT: Here, check out this article.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_temperature

Much better job of explaining.

[Gundersen]

Nice to see some discussion starting guys!

Jodali Yes indeed it would be cool to get some understanding to create certain moods with diffrent colours. Everyone knows that a blue icy landscape looks cold, but what kind of colours can you use to create a romantic feel? angry feel? Lonely feel?
So many hard questions..


The Temperature thing:
I see that it can be confusing the first times you look at it since logicaly you think that a darker colours is warmer. But lights aswell as colours are counted in theire strength to lighten up a place. A candel light is counted as 1 Lux, which is the weakest source of light by scale we use in Architecture.

So the blue light is a stronger light source when it comes to lighting up something, you can easily see that on new cars where they are useing Neon head lights instead of the old classic ones that had a more dark yellow light.

So yes in the way we look at it, Dark colours a warmer and Light colours cooler. No idea if that explained anything or just made everyone prety damn confused :P hehe

[robmorfin]

2nd Assignment - Dreamscape. Will be very colorfull. perspective is not off, trying to create optical illusions as proposed by the director.

[Gundersen]

robmorfin Can you explain a bit more about your ideas and thoughts about your sketch :) Its a bit hard to comment on atm since i have no idea what you are showing.

The perspective looks correct :) So there are two persons standing in the front looking into this seemingly 1 point that disapear in the horizon? What are all those elements around representating??

/me wants to hear more :P

[jodali]

the following is a quote from wikipedia.......

----------------------------------------------------


In physics, Planck's law describes the spectral radiance of electromagnetic radiation at all wavelengths from a black body at temperature T. As a function of frequency ν, Planck's law is written as:

I(\nu,T) =\frac{2 h\nu^{3}}{c^2}\frac{1}{ e^{\frac{h\nu}{kT}}-1}. [1]

As a function of wavelength λ it is written (for infinitesimal solid angle) as:

I(\lambda,T) =\frac{2 hc^2}{\lambda^5}\frac{1}{ e^{\frac{hc}{\lambda kT}}-1}. [2]

Note that this formula will vary slightly by a constant factor (often a pi) depending on the field of view assumed in the derivation. Note also that the two functions have different units - the first is radiance per unit frequency interval while the second is radiance per unit wavelength interval. Hence, the quantities I(ν,T) and I(λ,T) are not equivalent to each other. To derive one from the other, they cannot simply be set equal to each other (ie: the expression for λ in terms of ν cannot just be substituted into the first equation to get the second). However, the two equations are related through:

I(\nu,T)d\nu=-I(\lambda,T)d\lambda.\,


------------------------------------------------


It seems that I have jumped into a pit of chaos and confusion trying to deal with color theory btw I have absolutely no clue what any of the above means

[jodali]

robmorfin - the sketch looks pretty good, cant wait to see what colors that your planning to use.

[Gundersen]

I think that is going a bit to deep mate :) Just have in mind that the blue colour is stronger then the red one, but the red colour is warmer in its feelings then the blue one! :P hehe

[jodali]

I think that is going a bit to deep mate :) Just have in mind that the blue colour is stronger then the red one, but the red colour is warmer in its feelings then the blue one! :P hehe

lol.... this does need to be kept simple

[chaosrocks]

stage 2

[chaosrocks]

weird what the attachment does
actuall colors are quite different
hmmm

[Gundersen]

Looking nice Chaos ... but watch that perspective again like i kind of hinted to last time ... I hope you dont mind i painted in some lines to show you...

You have very nice colours and some good ideas.

http://img70.imageshack.us/img70/4051/attachmentshowmw2.jpg

[Gundersen]

here is an update on mine. Did some thumbs about diffrent perspectives, but decided i realy liked the first one i did the best. So have done some colour testing on it, and starting building it up. Comments and critts are very welcome, since my girlfriend says she doesnt understand my painting at all, and that its impossible to see that we are looking into some sort of a cave, excavation shaft...

http://img251.imageshack.us/img251/3430/fargetestbb6.jpg


http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/9667/show2ju3.jpg

[Earendil]

Right now I'm trying to get the overall values and colors working. I know what you mean Gundersen, my WIP is supposed to be a forest, but right now, with nothing but a round airbrush, I haven't really given masses much texture. That's probably why your GF can't really make out much.

I think you can make any of those thumbs work. What do you want to achieve with the picture? Where do you want peoples eyes to wander and why?

My WIP:
What is beyond?

I'm shooting for a magical and eerie atmosphere with this picture. I'm choosing blue as the dominant color because 1) It'll make the more unnatural colors stand out 2) Helps convey the temperature of the environment as being cold and snowy. I wanted to convey the still and quiet feel of the forest, and being a passive color as opposed to aggressive, the blue helps in this regard while at the same time giving an air of mysticism and murkiness to the scene.

I want to convey a quiet beauty in the lower saturated areas, with mystery and wonder (light and complementary-to-blue hues respectively) in the strange colors and values deeper in the background. Not so much to contrast, as more of a balance between area saturations. The myster object will be hidden, but its effects will be seen. Light, saturated hues reflecting...hmm...there's a theme of reflection here...HI Gundersen! :P

The darkness will help vignette the scene and make the light areas stand out more. EDIT: As I just read this, I noticed none of hte following has been applied yet :) )The upper midleft background will probably be one of the most darkest areas, and will help add a barrier between the blue light area, and the magenta/red area. The lower right will help transition between these two, with low low values. I want the viewpoint to convey a sort of 3rd-eye view of the scene....an inconspicuous observer safely hidden in the darkness of the area. We are at the instant in time when the human notices the mystery in the woods.

Was any of this confusing?

I'm looking now, and the magenta area simply needs to be fleshed out more, and moved slightly to the left, it's too close to the edge of the frame.

I had tons of process snapshots, which got cleared when I reopened the file. Save your snapshots people! :S Too bad, I wanted to show this things development from the ground up so people could say "Hey, instead of wasting so much time with this, just do this *SHIZAM*" "oh hey I learned better workflow!"

Notes: The figure's pose will be fixed, the legs aren't working quite right. That magenta color isn't working at this point. The next few hours will now be to develop the background area, and bring foreground/background together.

[chaosrocks]

Gunderson
Thanks. the VP should be up and to the right of where youve put it
I guess
still need to work on the stairs. In the fore ground I have curved the space just a smidge to compensate for the weirdness of the 1 point perspective
and I m stil working on the ccolunade. I'll definately recheck that


But everything else matches up that way,... the trees are on the 3rd wall, and not intended to receed to the vp.
oddly when I posted this it washed out a bit
I need to look at it on my other computer. the laptop tends to be bright

on your wip. I am still having trouble fitting the objects in to the space, is that a big flat canyon type wall with the crystal spyder climbing up it? Im not reading it as space
or spacial and Im not reading the crystal as a crystal. I guess my brain keeps reading it as an origami crane.... withthe pun on crane echoed by the pulley in front

Earendill.
close this for a few, and open it and analyse it lik eyou did the others at the begining of the assignment. try not to think of it as yours. or even as the imge you imagined, to make it.
If I analyse it in terms of colour. what Im seeing is two isoalted spots of unrelated colour. a red and a purple in a basically blue field. compositionally all your colour is off center, and the purple is an arrow pointing the viewr off the page. l try looking with new .refreshed eyes. and analyses in mind rather than creation

[Earendil]

Gunderson
...and Im not reading the crystal as a crystal. I guess my brain keeps reading it as an origami crane.... withthe pun on crane echoed by the pulley in front

I think it's because right now, the crystal doesn't look like it's the source of light, but reflecting. If the crystal is the source of light, then remove those shadows. Also, the crane right in front is kind of distracting...but I guess we're focusing on color this week.

I see what you're saying chaos, I don't think the magenta/purple color is working. A large part of this issue is that I've spent too much time developing the look and feel of the left, without much thought to the right.

Also chaos, could you clarify what you're trying to tell me when you say my composition is off center. It is, but are you merely observing that it is, or do you think it's not working compositionally? Why etc?

[daldbaatar]

btw Gundersen i think the heat theroy reminds me the core color of fire. U know that some fires have different blazes. For examples some flames are blue in the core etc

[chaosrocks]

as a composition in BW its fine. but when you add the saturated color elements it throuw the whole thing to the right
I think you need to reallyt think throught the integration of the color into the whole scheme its reading as an after thought

[rvdtor]

well gundersen to your observations earlier about temperature and contrast and how color relates to both and stuff i dont think there is a definite formula. i mean warm and cool colors can be very subjective. i mean when painting as if in real life i guess there's a certain way people percieve certain objects as having certain colors. like green trees and grey rocks etc. when it comes to making fantasy paintings like this one we've been assigned i think any hues would work it all depends on what you're going for and what you're trying to portray. what matters most i think is skill in working with values and saturation. i thi nk can make or break any painting even if the right hues are applied for the right emotions.

gundersen i like the idea for your piece and it works well for being fantasy i guess, physics can be ignored to a certain extent i mean its a dream right? the main thing we have to focus on is color which isn't so easy. the colors you chose from your thumbnails was the one i though was best suited too...i agree with earendil about the crystal being the light source...im sure you figured the dark colors would make it brighter tho because its the light source it should be completely bright while the surrounding make it stand out.

earendil i like your idea the first wip is good tho where do you want the viewers eyes to go...cause mine go right to the lit area on the left tho after the characters is placed in the continuity fails a bit and the purple hue on the right just looks like a smudge. but it IS a wip but i like your idea.

chaosrocks it looks like a regular scenery to me dont see anything dreamy about it tho i like ur explanation...your background and lighting on the trees grass and sky is good draws the eyes there, perspective like gundersen said needs work which im sure u can pull off.

i have mine to do so will post soon so u guys can kill it hehe.

[Earendil]

as a composition in BW its fine. but when you add the saturated color elements it throuw the whole thing to the right
I think you need to reallyt think throught the integration of the color into the whole scheme its reading as an after thought

All of the saturated color elements, or the purple/magenta? Integration of all the color in the whole scheme, or the purple/magent arrow? :^^:

[chaosrocks]

well to my eyes the two dispirate color splashes. need some kind of connection and integration. but I see tht the boss is here.....
{runs and hides},,,

[Earendil]

well to my eyes the two dispirate color splashes. need some kind of connection and integration. but I see tht the boss is here.....
{runs and hides},,,

Finally! [portal]

Yeah, I think it's working better on the left, if I remove the more distant color splash all together. Integration...yearp....Maybe get some saturated branches ...oooo I've got an idea. It involves graphic vectors and better integration :)

[Form]

Ok Guys, in this reply I have given you extra homework questions on each of your artworks - your answers to these will constitute your mark for 'ongoing analysis'.

D. Labruyere | Post #3:

A lot to read? Try writing it ;)

Earendil | Post #4:

Welcome, how about that for a first post :P Bierstadt is great, I had a feeling a few others might use his artworks as their examples too.

Focus Question: you say that the foreground jumps out because of its saturated greens. Is this really so? Id like you to do a second analysis of this area, and talk about how he integrates it with the rest of the scene.

Your comment on the river - about blue hues. Are there really any blue hues there? Take it into ps and check with your colour picker...

I see what you mean about the 3 divisions, but i wouldnt say they are necessarily exact 3rds. If you separate the sections they form a less precise grid more weighted toward the lower left - i think the focal point rests more on the horizon/water line at the base of the mountains. The horizon line and the small copse of trees have the highest value contrast side by side in the whole painting, and many compositional lines lead here. COmposition can be very subtle - and dont forget, the painter's objective isnt to 'lock' our eyes onto one focal point, but rather to lead us around the canvas skillfully. Focal points exist for the purpose of domination and subordination - so our brains dont get confused by too much 'stuff'.

Is the light cool or warm? ... if so... how does that affect shadows? Describe this relationship for me.

good work so far!

chaosrocks | post #5:

you don't say a lot about cezanne's wealth of exploration here... what about the way he uses colour instead of value in a lot of areas to depict form? It's a powerfully simple painting - but he still has a lot to say.

Gunderson | Post #9

Ooh, Friedrich, excellent :) Id like you to tell me about the warm light in the foreground. Where is it coming from? Where is the blue coming from? You have identified it all correctly - now tell me how it got there!

;)

The second freidrich is lovely too. But your comment on the sky getting lighter as it gets closer to us - i want you to double check that and do some exploration there.

Your analysis of feng's piece is really confusing - you used the word 'front' for background multiple times - but i think overall i understood what you meant. It just made some things sound back to front. Er... front to back... front to front?... anyway i want you to tell me why feng used a blue light in the mid ground on the pillar :) Why there, why that specific hue?

In the second feng, why has he used red in the waterfall in the foreground?

As to your list of observations - i wouldnt agree that all pictures have a dominant warm or cool. Not ALL do, but it is a good way to construct them GENERALLY - due to domination and subordination (or heirarchies). I do believe the eyes are drawn generally to warmer colours. This is part preferential and part due to atmospheric 'conditioning' of our vision over time, and the subconscious influence of distance on our perception.

Value does change, but not ALWAYS that definately. Sometimes the darkest darks are at the back. Sunsets are often a good example. Saturation is generally the rule too - but again, there are exceptions.

The main light source will definately skew the temperature layout one way or another. It has to do with the three elements that go into the colour of a painted object - local colour, bounce colour and ambient light.

chaosrocks | Post #18:

come on! tell me more... HOW does he do that with the air? Are the touches of colour really WARM? What about sky vs foreground? Magic greys? Keep looking again (re:specting) the image :)
Colour picker!

jodali | Post #22:

Turner piece is a beauty huh! Ok focus questions: how does he get away with both the warms and cools being so saturated? How has he used that to compose? Can you describe the different sections of colour in the composition? Combine this with some research into the period of art he was painting in - give us all a little background :)

Kuciara's piece is a nice digi. Tell me: with all that grey, desaturated colour, how does he differentiate between the cliffs and the sky - what methods does he use to help us tell them apart?



Earendil | Post #25:

Cool painting - havnt seen this one before :) Good observations. Tell me, which do you think is more dominant, cool or warm? And why?
Also, where do you think the sun is in the sky in 3 dimensional space?

jodali | Post #26:

AHA! Another Bierstadt - I knew it :)

The waterfall area is beautiful - there is some nice warm/cool there. Tell me: that is clearly the focal point - as with the first bierstadt above there is a waterfall reflecting on the water with warm light saturating it. But in this case we have a much more saturated/hue shifting foreground with the red and yellow characters in the corner. Was this a risky move? How did he keep them subordinated but still in the picture?

The liberto painting: sunlight is usually warm. Why do you think he chose a cooler light? Where are other warms in the picture? Remember - everything is relative.

[chaosrocks]

um Im not sure how to do the color picker thing.. (blush)
help plz
?

chaos

[Earendil]

In the PS tool palette, there is a color picker tool that looks like a turkey baster. :) It's right above the magnifying glass. Open your image, and using the tool, click on whatever area of color you wish to sample.

Thank Form, I'll be looking at the pictures again.

[Form]

robmorfin | Post #27:

question #1: why the HELL are you using vista?!?! BAD BOY! *SLAP ON HAND*

There is a dominating contrast between warm/cool in Van's piece - where?

in the second painting of venice, where is the dominant focal point, and how is this achieved with colour?

the first feng is great - with the obvious 2 part contrast between the warm and cool, how does he keep it from being too 50/50 balance - how does he create dominance of one temp?

i love that painting from barontieri. Good observations again. Question: what stops the saturated green foliage on the left from drawing too much attention?

Earendil | Post #32:

First thing im going to talk about is one of the misnomers we tried to clear up at the start. I have noticed in your posts that you use a lot of subjective language like 'hellish reds'. Its important to be careful and note that colour is completely subjective - one red is nto hellish and another non-hellish. The reds here give you that emotional response due to a coordination of all the element sin the picture TOGETHER - dont put too much emphasis on JUST the colours as the sole invokers of an emotional response! Thats all, small reminder :) Question: What is pstraub doing with the colours of the rocks under the tower?

Earendil | Post #36:

question: what makes the lights appear neon? colour-wise? why do you think church used red haze in the background instead of all blue?

[Form]

far out... this is way too much for me to get through.... its been 2 hours already reading through and replying. im going to have to let the rest slide for now... didnt realise what i was getting myself into. will have to think about getting a support teacher or something. careful what you wish for i guess?

as for a few people who have messaged me about whether the piece needs B+W - i have been clear enough already. I said in a post earlier in the thread that the piece has to be full colour. Its as simple as that. FULL COLOUR :)

Ill try to get onto this thread again as much as possible, but yeah its a busy one and i have no money to eat at the moment :P so i need to prioritise the stuff that pays the bills.

Cheers
A

[Form]

Ok ive been doing some thinking and talking and prioritising - i need to shift the structure of this class to rely a little less on me and more on you guys. i think you have been doing a good job of critiquing each other. So from now on the class should be able to effectively run itself. I will jump in with specific crits here and there, or if someone asks for something specific. That alone is a good 4-5 hours of management.. and my schedule is seriously jam packed. I want the class to keep going and the influx of new members seems to have bolstered activity levels.

So ill still be here as much, just a bit quieter, and spending less time at the keyboard and more time painting. Cheers :) F

[Gundersen]

Ok Form, Ill try to be as active as i always been and keep people with me! hehe.

So i tried to get some dicussion going about colour, and now its time to reply to the responses i got from the mob:

rvdtor Ok so you think that colour temperature can be diffrent in fantasy images, Sure that is possible i guess. But can you use for instance Brown/Orange as a cool colour in a fantasy picture? I think that would be difficult.. :P

Thanks alot for the crit, yes my crystal is the main light source here. And i need to work more on that. The reason i put the crane in the foreground was to create some atmosphere, but i might remove that one. hehe

Earendil & Chaosrock Thanks for comments both of you. ill answer to you in general :)

I wan the floating object to be my main focus, people have found this object and have started to build structures around it. The object is SITTUATED IN A SHAFT!!! Picture yourself like this. My object is hanging inside a Cola box, your standing on one side of the box looking over to the other, And the object hangs in front of you...

/me slaps himself .. gonna work more on light and stuff, thanks guys!

[Earendil]

You can still put the crane in the foreground Gundersen, just not so it's covering up the crystal.

Also, you may say it's in a shaft, and I'm sure you could make it look like a shaft. However, maybe choose a perspective that shows this a little better? Right now it's like trying to look at a slice of a cylinder straight on, and say it's round and tall when from the perspective it just looks like a rectangle.

Maybe a more vertical frame?


Ok, so...here are the latest. There's a lot of tricky grey, blue, desaturated midtone stuff that may be over my head, but I'm diving in anyway. Let me know what you think of this guys. I'm going to switch monitors soon because I'm really having trouble with my shadow areas. I'm not even sure what color they should be, but I like what the dark blue/grey has been giving me. Color relativity is CRAZY. I'm so glad I'm in this class!!!

[jodali]

well I think that i spent a little to much time on this. If your guys do not want read through all of it here is a little recap, to under stand these you should read Forms questions....

1 Turner - romanticism period - emotion - natural world - emphasize on the beauty of nature
2 Kuciara - uses values, and subtle hue shifts
3 Bierstadt - no he used lower values to make you overlook the foreground
4 Liberto - continuity to the background, some trees and house are warmer


"Turner piece is a beauty huh! Ok focus questions: how does he get away with both the warms and cools being so saturated? How has he used that to compose? Can you describe the different sections of colour in the composition? Combine this with some research into the period of art he was painting in - give us all a little background"

to start of here is a little background for turner and the period in which he painted. From what I have gathered he would mostly be associated with romanticism. This period was brought by a want to revolt against scientific study and exact thinking of the more enlightened people of the higher parts of society. He wanted to rebel and show how the world was more than that, there was pain and also passion, he wanted to convey that there are many emotions. he also wanted to show the beauty of nature instead of the hard calculated world of machinery.

Now knowing this the painting seems a little easier to judge, I personally believe that the sunset is supposed to be the main subject, which is why he gave the clouds and the sky so much saturation and contrast, I think the painter was trying to draw your attention to the beauty of the nature and the world and away from the ships. The sail ship has a much lower value contrast and is no where near as saturated as the rest of the painting. having all that contrast towards the right side of the painting drawing your eye there I believe that he needed to balance out the overall composition, so the towing ship in front of the sail ship is very dark in value, giving it a little more contrast to the ship behind. it has some heavy saturation but I think thats mostly reflections of the sunset. The colors in this piece are divided very roughly into two, mostly the right (reds, oranges, yellows, golds, and just about every color in between) and the left side (blues, purples) after thinking about it maybe there are four section, almost like a ying-yang shape there is a little blob of blues in the right side and a little bit of reds in the left, this was probably done to help with the balance of the piece, just enough to keep you're eyes moving. This is a real interesting painting.



"Kuciara's piece is a nice digi. Tell me: with all that grey, desaturated colour, how does he differentiate between the cliffs and the sky - what methods does he use to help us tell them apart?"

For the most part, the cliffs are a little more contrasty in value, they have just a few more dark spots in the shadows, he also kept a few lighter clouds behind the cliffs to give it that nice line that distinctly separates the two. Another way that he gave us to tell the difference between sky and cliffs is the some subtle and some heavy hue shifts. There are a lot of different shades of tans, greens, real light pinks and a lot of different hues of blue



"AHA! Another Bierstadt - I knew it The waterfall area is beautiful - there is some nice warm/cool there. Tell me: that is clearly the focal point - as with the first bierstadt above there is a waterfall reflecting on the water with warm light saturating it. But in this case we have a much more saturated/hue shifting foreground with the red and yellow characters in the corner. Was this a risky move? How did he keep them subordinated but still in the picture?"

I think that it could have been risky with all those saturated characters up front, but only if he didn't keep the value down as far as he did, if he would of had a higher value there they would have brought a lot more attention to them, but the majority of the foreground is pretty dark, which allows all the colors to almost blend into each other, except for the few lighter specs of color that he gave to imply to presence of the characters, they are very saturated but their value is low which kind of allows your eyes to pass over them and go to the waterfall.


"The liberto painting: sunlight is usually warm. Why do you think he chose a cooler light? Where are other warms in the picture? Remember - everything is relative."

I personally think that he choose the cooler sunlight to bring a little bit of continuity to the background, if it were a little warmer you attention might be brought to the top left of the painting instead of the house. I wouldn't really think that the house was to warm but i guess that relative to the rest of the colors in the background It seems that the house would be the warmer area of this painting also just to the left of the house the trees seem to be a little warmer than the rest of them. They look like they have a little yellowish green in them unlike the other trees which are kind of blueish green.

[jodali]

Gundersen - I think that your choice of colors seems to be the best out of all of the thumbs you put together

chaosrocks - interesting scene you got there, I agree with the perspective thing, but I guess your already fixing that. I like your colors too.

Earendil - really liking those greys and blues, although I kind of liked the not-so-strong shadows in your earlier parts.

form - get to that bread earning


since everyone else is posting their stuff i guess I should throw down my stuff.
I couldn't tell you what these things are, all i know is that I had a dream, woke up and did a real quick sketch. I know that this really doesnt have any depth to it, and I dont like the perspective, I want the orange hanging things to be over the viewer instead of so far off in the distance, the only thing that i like about this so far is the colors, and there will probably be something orange or red in the sky on the right

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m120/jdlfx/CAorg/110707dreamscapeI.jpg

[Earendil]

Now that you mention it jodali, that's probably what's been bugging me. I wanted it obviously darker, but I've really pushed the darkness too far maybe overall. Save the really dark stuff for the right areas maybe. I don't know I'm going to wait for more input, but thanks! I'm really not sure how to transition correctly from those light tons emanating from the right, to the grey/blues on the left. I was hunting for a magic grey cause I heard those were...well...magical. :) My fresh eyes are gone, where did they go? Pretty sure the tree shadows are NOT working, but I'm not sure what's wrong...ARgh.

I really like how quickly you're able to block those colors in. What were you thinking? What's your game plan? :) Already, those colors seem to work even at this early stage, but I'm a newbie so...

[Gundersen]

I like the dark shadows you have used in your latest picture Earendil. It brings out the more importen parts of your image. The trees in the foreground are not imporant. Its creates a balance and sharpnes to the image, if you use more blue colours in the front the image loose its sharpness.

Jodali: like your orange clouds, hope you manage to transfer it to a great image :)

[Earendil]

So at this point I'm ready to add tons of wonderful little details and texturing? ;)

For the record, I'm officially losing sleep over this. It's my first time, let's say a Shehecheyanu (http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/Shehecheyanu.html)

[Agustin Poratti]

.unmmm yes, bringin in some additional teachers would be great,,, no offense to anyone, but i think the quality of teh critiques happening among ourselves arent but a shadow of what someone above us can say.

jodali, try not post irrelevant stuff (formula), it's already difficult to keep track of what's going on...

gundersen: "rvdtor Ok so you think that colour temperature can be diffrent in fantasy images, Sure that is possible i guess. But can you use for instance Brown/Orange as a cool colour in a fantasy picture? I think that would be difficult.. "

yes, dude, just use a desaturated brown/oragen against a very saturated mass of warms, like orange again or yellows. btw, look at forms last round entry for an example.

gundersen
- Is colour contrast most efficient in temperature contrast or direct colour contrast?
what do you mean?
- What is the main purpose of colour in an image?
it's a tool. just like a hammer. you decide what to do with it, and if it's going to help your work or kill it.
- Can colour save an image from being bad?
yes. just like good value work can save a colour plan from being pointless.
- What do YOU think is the best way to use colour? Do you prefere to put down the main colour first, or do you put down the contrasting colours?
i prefer to build a colour plan/thumbnail first and see how things work out, and maybe tone the palette towards some colour.
- Can the use of Temperature changes be used to create a focus point?
i dunno. give me an example maybe?

earendil post #56: to our goals, no, it didn't.
"Some stars burn red/orange and have a lower color temperature of ONLY 7,900,000Kelvin."
how can this help us when painting?

[Agustin Poratti]

sorry, not in the best mood today :/ one of my computers melted. the one i used for interneting, so i may see you all on the deadline...

[robmorfin]

Man, I am super busy, have a deadline for today, and tonight I am going camping until Sunday afternoon, I will follow up with your reply Form and continue with the assignments then, I'm sure there will be lots of replies by then.

Here is the dreamscape in progress, I still need to work on it for a while and not sure yet how to explain it because I still haven't decided which direction to go.

[robmorfin]

At the left vanishing point it will be a red light.

[Gundersen]

robmorfin: Is this painted in watercolour? or is it digitaly painted?

For me it looks alot like watercolour, and that there is WAY to much colour :) You need to look at some of the points about this thread, How to use colour to create perspective, contrast and so on..

[Form]

earendil - your wip is looking great! i guess im wondering what sort of object that doorway is in - is it a great big wall? Dense trees? its a bit hard to read that. The only other thing at this stage would be to make sure you keep the atmospheric perspective in check by watching the background subordination of contrast and detail (relative to the area as it proceeds toward the viewer).

jodali - great followup to those questions! those are all observant answers - im really glad you probed a little bit further :) i hope everyone else has the patience to have a read too :) cheers. as for your work in progress, its looking really nice, colour-wise, and i can see the atmospheric influence from turner! Just watch the balance of your composition so the piece doesnt feel 'heavy' on one side. Make sure to clarify a focal point and work your other elements around that. Looking forward to the finished result!

robmorfin: i wouldnt say there is 'too much colour' - that is perhaps implying the wrong thing. What IS important is your ability to subordinate elements that are not the focus. Right now, my eye is trying to look at EVERYTHING, because it is all so strong and saturated, and its competing for my attention. Painting is all about heirarchy - make the hard decision of what to focus on, and then make sure that is at the pinnacle of the viewer's attention always. Clarity is the key!

[daldbaatar]

Hello people.
Ive been awfully busy & will be busy more and this month is gonna be a HELL MONTH for me. Here is the first glimpse of the final. I might add finishing touchups and etc. Guys tell me if u have opinions. Will write comments soon. Thanks.

[Gundersen]

Further observation

Friedrich piece 1:
Hmm I am not 100% sure if I will answer on this one correctly. But I think the yellow in the foreground has to come from a sun shining from behind him slightly above. This yellow colour in the mist has to be from the sun. The blue colours of the landscape is the atmospheric perspective that is being taken from the sky colour.

Friedrich piece 2:
I drew a way to quick conclusion on this one last time when I suggested that the sky gets lighter closer to us. So I studied it again and the reason why the clouds on the horizon line is so dark is because the sun is going down behind them, so it fully casts them into shadow. While above the sun the sky gets the colour of the sun the closer it gets towards it, and when its further away it is getting its normal blueish colour. So last time I said it was darker in the background, but that was wrong, The atmospheric perspective catches the colours of the sun as we go into the picture.

Feng piece 1:
Its very hard to say why he used the colour on the second pillar. But I think the reason he used the blue colour there was to create a temperature contrast. By having this blue colour on the pillars it sort of frames in the main focus which is this “hangar” on the right side of the pillars. On the left side of the pillar there is not much important things. I think he used that spesific Hue cause it contrast well against the main colour, and it has an unimportant feeling to it, if that makes sense. The colour doesn’t attract your eyes as much as the warm light colour in the main focus does.

Feng piece 2:
I think the red/orange J colour in the foreground waterfall is a reflection of a building standing behind the mountain on the right side. The sun light is hitting the building, and it is being reflected down into the water, that’s also why the water is a bit brighter there.

[Gundersen]

Here is an uppload on my image, still very much WIP. Changed the image alot since last time. Have decided to go for 2 main light sources. The blue cooler light from behind the crystal/thing and the more warm light on the right side. And i decided that the Crystal would not be the light source, it would rather get light from the other sources.

Any comments or critts are VERY welcome :)

http://img206.imageshack.us/img206/9767/show3su5.jpg

[chaosrocks]

hmm
I can tellyou what I see. I don't know how valuable that is. The object (whatever it is) is dead center in the picture making it a picture totally about the object rather than an environment. The object itsself is made up of rounded cylinders rather than facets which gives it a non-crystaline appearance, I still wouldn't say its crystal, or even made up of crystals. And the edges have gotten soft enough that its losing its origami look too.

composititonally there is a line drawn almost all the way acros your page through the middle that is very distracting. Im not sure where in the space the object is sitting perhaps building a deep space behind and beneath it would help? on the left side the darks are reading as foreground and the lights are receding. but on the right there is some ambiguity that I cant'quite lay my finger on, that is making the space unclear, are the long oval hangy things in front of, behind, or on the same level as the crystal.

I should probably not comment on color while I ma looking at this on my laptop since its not calibrated well. but what I see is alimited yellow blue palette.

keep working on it
but you might want to change you angle of view from straight on to something more compelling , to make the object more of a force to be recond with. or perhaps farther away as an inticeing goal to be sought.. at the moment, its just there, dead in the middle of the page... make me want to look at it, rather than shoving it in my face

with greatest respect
chaos

[rvdtor]

hey guys i've been working on my final along with some other works so im busy busy..
Earendil i like your refining work its really coming together and the light sources are well placed, the characters seems a bit off but its pretty good as far as i can see. the mood is well portrayed a cool cold area and the subtle warmth from the door is more pronounced because of the other blue hues.

Jodali im really digging your unsaturated colors and the clouds draw most of my attention. seems very gloomy for now but i like your brushwork. there are like two extremes to the painting so i can't wait to see what else is going to be on it.

Gundersen i agree with chaosrocks the composition is a bit flat even with the bright light source behind the crystal or the second light source. fine details add to a painting i think but yours is a bit cluttered there is no illusion of great depth in a deep cavern it just look all jumbled together. i like the effort you've put into the crystal itself but the rest needs work to make it pop out even more.

daldbaatar i like your piece the sky is stunning and adds to the effect of the ground its like being on the moon somewhere....the objects however look a bit bland and their hues are a bit too pure i think they aren't benefiting from the great sky and ground. otherwise its very good, nice depth.

im waiting to see what augustin does hehe


in any case its about time i posted ey? here's mine with some steps in between that i decided to show:

http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/7183/dream1wn6.jpg

http://img211.imageshack.us/img211/5239/dream2vy2.jpg

http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/8620/dream3ag3.jpg

[Gundersen]

Thanks Chaosrock and rvdtor for critts, appreciate it. Had to go deep into myself to realise it :)

Here i have changed some of the picture. Tried to add some more perspective elements, made the Crystal thing smaller and added some more cranes, details and so on ...

Anyone starting to like it more? :P

http://img64.imageshack.us/img64/6454/show4ss6.jpg

[Agustin Poratti]

dude, form, you never commented my study tasks, man :(

[chaosrocks]

Gunderson-- better i would still either raise or lower your point of view. And if the point the crane were on echo'ed receding space, ie was in perpective. perhaps it would increase the illusion of space. Im still having trouble seeing it as "about" color though. or about a dream. and visually there is still a line cutting your page in half in the middle. besecting your drawing into top and bottom. rather than leading your eye through the whole page.

rdvtor. thecolor is working prettye well but the large building top and bottom are not aligned in the same space and its making the whole structur look rubbery and a little warped. especially since the shape of the shadow doesn't quite line up withthe shape of the building. remember the hard objects have hard edges...

[Agustin Poratti]

i'm having a hard time with it rdvtor... kind of... deviated

[Earendil]

Focus Question: you say that the foreground jumps out because of its saturated greens. Is this really so? I'd like you to do a second analysis of this area, and talk about how he integrates it with the rest of the scene.

Well...not necessarily JUMPS out now that I look at it. Maybe it draws the eye because it's very busy and detailed. There's a lot more "action" going on, if that makes any sense. Lots of little contrasts with the light hitting the rock, the log, the little rocks...It starts on the lower left and sweeps across the bottom and into the mid/background. Interesting, there's almost a 3rd division along the Z-axis...flat near the foreground, trees/verticals in the midground...and of course we can't really see the background that well. I think the contrasts between the light and shadow combined with the more busy landscape with grass, pebbles, plants, and various details is what make this area more interesting, and becomes less busy as it moves back in space with less ittybitty detail.

Your comment on the river - about blue hues. Are there really any blue hues there? Take it into ps and check with your colour picker...

Jesus christ, Bierstadt is tricksy hobbitsS!! He's staying closer to desaturated purples and oranges, which vary in value. Desaturated is much cooler because of the overall higher saturation of the piece. He uses purple desaturates because the light is orange...wait a minute..They aren't really purple either. PS is showing it as a general desaturated red, to the point of grey. Is this what's meant by magic greys?! It seems like he merely takes whatever color is being reflected and desaturates by about 90% so it's almost but not quite grey! This is crazy!

Focal points exist for the purpose of domination and subordination - so our brains dont get confused by too much 'stuff'.

I'm glad, because I wasn't sure if I was supposed to be looking for a fixed point but more like a path like you describe.

Is the light cool or warm? ... if so... how does that affect shadows? Describe this relationship for me.

The light is warm, which makes the shadows overall cool. The light is golden yellow, and after sampling random shadow areas of the image, the colors are all dark dark purples, blues, violets etc. NOW...it's interesting to note, that the tree on the far right that stands straight...it's shadows are more close to the light source color...why? Bounce lighting from the rocks on its lower right! It's nuts.

--------------------------------
Earendil | Post #25:

Cool painting - havnt seen this one before Good observations. Tell me, which do you think is more dominant, cool or warm? And why? Also, where do you think the sun is in the sky in 3 dimensional space?

It's so hard to tell for me, it almost seems evenly divided, but I'm going to say it's more cool due to the smoke, and more amounts of greys, blues, greens, etc. At least that's what it looks like to me...the conflict comes because of those colors...EVERY SINGLE AREA of warmth demands my attention making me want to say, "oh it's mainly warm!". I'm not going to get tricked again though! O.o

Based on the specular highlight of the statue's shield, and the shadow being cast from it onto the midground bridge, I would say the sun's position is behind and to our upper right at about....40 degrees maybe.

--------------------------

Earendil | Post #32:

First thing im going to talk about is one of the misnomers we tried to clear up at the start. I have noticed in your posts that you use a lot of subjective language like 'hellish reds'. Its important to be careful and note that colour is completely subjective - one red is not hellish and another non-hellish.

The reds here give you that emotional response due to a coordination of all the elements in the picture TOGETHER - dont put too much emphasis on JUST the colours as the sole invokers of an emotional response!

Thats all, small reminder Question: What is pstraub doing with the colours of the rocks under the tower?

If I put "relatively" before every discriptor like that, would I be off the hook? :^^: Probably not.

I originally couldn't see the rocks under of the tower because my monitor was crushing the blacks very badly. Now that I see them, here's what's going on...The closer the rocks are to the greener/yellow light, the shadows are more blue/purple, are very saturated, but very dark as well. The rocks that are affected by the red torches however, are shadowed with dark greens. Some areas down below are even touched with some desaturated blues that appear relativily much cooler and stand out more than their surrounding saturated darks.


Earendil | Post #36:

question: what makes the lights appear neon? colour-wise? why do you think church used red haze in the background instead of all blue?

They're the coldest colors in the image. Overall the image has warm colors due to the sunrise/sunset, the richest being the foreground, then the midrichest, then the least in the background. This is also why the haze isn't blue, but more red because of the sun's low position in the sky and the pollution/particulate matter in the air.

[rvdtor]

thanks for the comment chaosrocks and augustin i will get to work on that right away.....also when is the deadline how long do we have left?

[jodali]

robmorfin - the colors are looking crazy, I like but think that it needs a little atmospheric perspective on the colors

daldbaatar - that looks great so far, I like that crazy distorted perspective, makes seem dreamy

rvdtor - thanks for the comments, on your image, the colors are interesting, but there is something about that doesnt sit well with me , I think that it may be the perspective.

Gundersen - I still like the colors you chose and its starting to look a little better but I think that there might be a problem with composition, I resized my browser and discovered that it looks a little better if you take that dark spot off the right side, either that or put a little bit of lighter areas there so that there is not a big black wall. I also think that you need to define where the light is coming from, I can tell that its on the right by looking at the crystal thing, but the bridges and other stuff isn't really being lit up as mush as the crystal, maybe a little fog or mist might help too. try to show of that yellow lighting


For my image I have changed the perspective and added some foreground and also some odd looking mounds, right now I'm kind of stuck, I dont know what to think of that flying spermdragon or if the overall composition is ok. these are just 3 different variations of the same thing, just different colors options, saturation etc.. I'm kind of looking for some crits cause I dont know whether to go on and put some details in or change everything.......
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m120/jdlfx/CAorg/111107dreamscapeIV.jpg

[Earendil]

jodali> I like the colors in the bottom one the most, they seem to work better. Aside from that, maybe add something in the foreground?

Here's my current WIP, I scrapped the other one because I felt it wasn't what I wanted. Wanted something more mysterious, and there's nothing mysterious really about a door with buttloads of light spilling from it. I felt this version works better because there's better framing, vectors, and more interesting landscape. As I look at this, that ball o'light's gonna have a higher falloff than it does right now. Again, not too much drama, more mystery. Show less!

Basically now, I'm going to finish the figure and some of the background details, then paint over it.

[D.Labruyere]

my final so far. still wip. It has been one of those drawings which seemed to be a punch into the face with every brush stroke I did.

[Gundersen]

rvdtor Look at the first post, that one shows the time it was posted according to your setting on Conceptart forum. So for me it says 05:52 Tuesday morning. So thats the deadline for me ... Meaning in about 20 hours from now!

I will comment on the rest of you guys work in an hour... need breakfast and get to uni first :)

[Gundersen]

daldaatar I like your picture, but to give you some critts to work on :) Why are the shadows on the boxes standing around dotted? And secondly, the second light source you are useing which is the core of the planet, this warm lava thing, maybe that should light eve more up from underneath so it gets clearer?

rvdtor nice piece of work. But i am haveing some problems seeing what it is atm. Is it a monument that the "travelere" or "worshiper" have found or is worshipping to? Or is it an entrance to a cave that a man are concidering to go into? And why have you decided to cut some parts of the building/structure? For my eyes the thing lying attop the entrance look very heavy and slightly off balance if you know what i mean... looks like it will fall down :)

jodali Thanks for comments/critts on my work, will look into it! When it comes to your picture it has changed alot since the last WIP you posted. I am not sure if i like this version better then the other one :) I realy liked the quietnes of your last post, but well this one is interesting. On the large rock on the right side of the picture there seems to be a bright yellow light that have lit up the front surface of it... What kind of light soruce is that ? And why are not the other rocks lighten up the same way? There seem to be a lack of a light source atm.. or i might be wrong :P hehe

Earendil Nice new WIP, like the way the kid is running after this light thing into the dark forest. Its a good idea when it comes to the use of colour! gonna be interesting to see the end result. Instead of posting your images as attachment, post the image directly into the post by useing the function that looks like a mountain and a sun... That way when we comment we can see your picture while we write the reply :)

D.Labruyere nice WIP, like the way the light comes down from the sky. White light reflection from a white building .. gonna be hard for you to get the reflection correctly onto the landscape around it :) And the light seems a bit hard atm, since there are some straight white lines on the edges. Normaly this light would only show because of the DUST in the air, so depending on where the dust clouds are, there is where you would see the light. So maybe not this coloum of light, but rather show particles in the air to represent where it comes from? :)


GL to all of you til the deadline, keep posting WIPs for critts if you need it from the rest of us!

[Earendil]

My images display fullsize, and not as attachments, you might check your forum settings. :^^:

Anyhoo, here's the updated version, but lets' just say that...While I kinda am getting what I wanted, and I have an idea of what I'm doing...there's a lot of wrestling going on. I wanted to keep the detail of the original, but color it...that's proving to be most interesting. I'm really liking the stuff on the right...not so much on the left. :)

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=237771&stc=1&d=1194865524

[Gundersen]

if you look above your image it says "attached thumbnail" and on for instance jodalis image, it doesnt say anything above, cause he has posted the image as a link rather then attaching it to the post :)

hehe dont take me for an idiot :) hehehe

Your image is looking realy nice, keep working on it. Get this feeling of following this ball, what if you do the rest in motion blur? so the ball looks like its speeding more and the camera is following the ball? :)
You are talking about not likeing the left side, so here is my question, what is the lightsource on the left side? Where is all that blue light comming from??

[Earendil]

if you look above your image it says "attached thumbnail" and on for instance jodalis image, it doesnt say anything above, cause he has posted the image as a link rather then attaching it to the post :)

hehe dont take me for an idiot :) hehehe

Your image is looking realy nice, keep working on it. Get this feeling of following this ball, what if you do the rest in motion blur? so the ball looks like its speeding more and the camera is following the ball? :)
You are talking about not likeing the left side, so here is my question, what is the lightsource on the left side? Where is all that blue light comming from??

Ohhh, that requires offsite linking...FINE >:| :wink:

And you're not an idiot [portal]

The camera isn't following the ball in this case. I'm making it a passive observer. I'm treating this as a single frame from an animated feature, so I'm more concerned with where the actors are in relation to the environment. At the most, this shot would have a slow zoom.

That would be something to consider for maybe a race sequence...hMMm..

w00t!


http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2279/1982425468_f290fd8324_o_d.jpg

[Gundersen]

ok. But you talked about that you didnt like the left side of your picture atm. I think one problem that makes you not like it is that you have a very strong lightsource there in a rather dark forest, so where is this light comming from?

[Earendil]

Moon light thru the mist. Hmmm, you're right...maybe knock the values down just a tad. Ohhh, i'm going to bED.

[rvdtor]

wow earendil i can really feel the warmth coming from the glowing ball thing. around the surrounding trees the reflection is great. the left side like gundersen said is a bit bland and kinda flat, but i know its still a WIP so im sure you'll fix those. toning them down a bit would make the right side stand out even more....good tho.


jodali your rocks are very well textured and ur sky and ground levels have nice perspective....the dripping clouds have nice coloring and contrast to the sky the object seems to be just sitting there and the sharp angle on the tail kinda looks wierd but nice composition. great work.

Oh D Labruyere i like ur composition and depth but the sky's perspective is a bit off i dunno something about it. but great idea

chaosrocks, gundersen , jodali and everybody else thanks for the crit, i agree the object in my drawing was a bit too big and the perspective was wonky and it seemed to be leaning on one side and didn't look like it was behaving the way a heavy block of rock would behave it was distorting the entire image...so i redid the cave added some smaller details and added more sky to the top of the canvas to make more wide open space. hope this improves the last image.....

http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/5720/dream5mk1.jpg

[daldbaatar]

hi guys. thanks for everybody who did comment. Made me see some flaws on my stuff.
rvdtor: Hey man. I think your pictire doesnt have much color vairables. It seems it needs a little warm color somewhere, maybe on the light source side. And the hill looks as ih it has very sharp edge on top, as if its straight 45 degrees down on the other side.
Earandil. I like it man. The thing is that the deep ( purple ) forest doesnt look it has depth. And the hues are strong. Making it look weird like a very flat art being put there. The adding low saturation colors will do just fine i think.
Chaos rock: I like the feeling of your picture. Like its a morning sunlight in a cool autumn day with a slight clouds. It seems it needs a bit refinement. Somehow it seems the horizon line and those 4 trees dont seem to match the perspective u're trying to show here...
Jodali: Man i like the 3rd color variation. It has more richness to it. I dont think i see any flaws in depiction of depth and atmosphere. Good job man. I think adding more of thoes dragon things in the skyline here and there would do just fine man.
robmorfin: The piece u're doing seem very complicated to me. I mean showing the depth and color reflections can be the hardest thing. But making the beams more like a very hard and smooth object can help i think. Like colored mirrors.
Gundersen: I like it man. I dont know but somehow my eyes go straight to the two wormy looking crystals. The nearest crane should be moved more closer and little higher or lower i think. Maybe could be made bigger? Cus it adds to this midle-cuttin line bridge and really seperates the pic in two. The two worm crystals are kinda put even, also adding to the effect.
D.Lab. The ground and sky looks totally far away from each other...the light source so close to the arc is really making it look weird. The cloud above needs more detail to make it look closer to the ground. And the straight light should make more shades i think as it land on more lower parts...

Well we have halfday to post the final. Good luck guys.

[Gundersen]

Thanks for critts daldbaatar, gonna keep working on it now for some hours before the deadline.

Have gotten ALOT further already then the previous post :) hehe

Good luck to all the last hours. and atm its not half a day, its 8-9 hours! :)

[Gundersen]

November 6th, 2007, 05:56 AM - the time of the thread start

November 12th 2007, 09:15 PM - the time of my last post

November 13th 2007, 05:56 AM - The final time


That brings it to exactly 8 hours and 41 minutes and counting! :P

[chaosrocks]

http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e181/chaosrocks/dreamscape6.jpg
final

I think this is done
it was a struggle in Painter. but I gotta learn to use it
needs more atmosperic perspective...
but I think I finally nudged the perspective into , at least agreeing with it's self.

Color analysis
in my quest for both a menacing sense of stillness and a cold sunnyday emptiness. I have tried to keep the colors mostly bright and clear. The blue objects in the center are cushions ..not rocks...thus accounting for their bright color. I wanted the blue to jar the eye in a less saturated environment.

[chaosrocks]

gunderson Ive scribbled on you peice a bit to show the things that most concern me about it. the compositional line where that aalk way is... maybe make its perpective more extreme?
the point s were things touch the mainobject but aren't really in the same space.. they are not precisely tangents but they hurt the readability of the space none the less.

I also cropped it to make it less central. and maybe more dynamic?
I dunno

just some thoguhts
crx

[Gundersen]

You also have to provide to him an explanation of how you have worked with the colour - the theories behind it and what you wanted them to achieve.

Here is my final image. To explain some details regarding it, first the ideas behind the picture:
- The idea started out about an unsharpenede diamon floating in air to represent the unsharpened mind of an artist both when we are dreaming and living normaly. The idea was to show the Humans have started excavating this sacred place and stealing it. SO the picture developed into a cave where there are some Crystal floating in the empty space. Humans have excavated the site and are now working on takeing these diamonds/crystals away.

Then over to how i worked on colours. First i was thinking about haveing the crystal thing light up the space inside the cave. But I changed my mind since the composition did not work then, and went for haveing the entrance to the cave as the main light source, and as secondary light source"s" there have been placed some artifical human lights. When it comes to colour use it was mainly focused on the light. I wanted to create a contrast between the warm and cool colours. I used the orange and blue light to contrast this as good as i could. I Worked on values to create an atmospheric perspective. It was not easy on the right side since there is a battle between orange and blue halfway into the cave. But i am please with the result so far. I tried to use colours reflected in the crystal to make it stand out, so thats why it has some blue and orange colour on it, depending on where the light source is comming from. There was also added some green stripes on the crystal to give them a "special" colour so that they would not only be coloured by reflected colours.
I tried to keep in mind what we have learned on previous weeks, about haveing the stronges values in the front and let it get more and more saturated the further into the picture you go. I think i am starting to get a feel for it and that it is looking better and also comming more naturaly when i paint.

Hope that explanation was good enough :)

My final piece:

http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/4343/ferdigcolour2yi1.jpg

[daldbaatar]

Damn Gundy..There we go...Cool piece man!

[Agustin Poratti]

http://img50.imageshack.us/img50/5/dipticoak9.jpg


damn. from the point i started working on something based on my dreams, i completely lost control.
that's mainly why i deviated so much into these.. non-environmental works. and it's why i lost track along the way of what i did with colour.
i tried to use saturation/contrast to lead the eye, also colour complements like blue and orange, or red adn green. in the bottom one, there's a lot of virtual green, just desaturated yellow. and greys and whites have been a usefull friend o generate rest zones. however, beyond some point, i was just adding paint not really thinking what i was doing...
these two are suposed to work together. we call it 'diptico' in spanish, not sure the name for a work made by two parts in english.
i can't really tell anymore, i'm inside the mix, i can barely see the paintings. lol.
i'm really sorry i went subjective and all.... wouldn't have happened if it was a real paid job.
well, won't happen again!
*ready for F*

pd. i never got my study tasks commented. therefore, no ongoing exploration either. :P

[D.Labruyere]

Ok my final :) now I'm off to bed, if this thing is still busy when I wake up again I meight work some more on it .

Thank you for the critics people, much apreciated.

[Earendil]

Agustin> Really like the bottom one, I think it works the best. What medium is this? I'm a noob, so I can't tell. The subjectivity of color is definitely a lesson I'm starting to learn from these exercises.

Gundersen> I like what you did with the transition of cools to warms in this piece. I still think that crane in the foreground should be on the right side, it's just jutting into the crystal awkwardly. My only other suggestion would be to really up the contrast of light and dark on the foreground rocks so they come forward more.

D. Labruyere> Love the light through the clouds. Would there be a shadow under the archway...maybe it's diffuse enough I can't tell. The rocks closer to us, I don't see how they're getting that much light from those angles. Overall the value of the water and the rocks doesn't vary much, and it seems like it would with just that single light source, and moving further away towards the camera and to the side.

We have until 11PM tonight right? I just gotta try and FIX a few things...

[jodali]

great finals everyone..

With the colors I tried to create some contrast by using mostly oranges and blues hopefully creating a lot of tension. Trying to give the thought of impending doom. I tried to desaturate everything that i did not want your eye to be focused on, mostly the background rock formations. I saturated the subjects such as the clouds, flying dragon, dead dragon, and the guy hiding behind the rock to hopefully bring attention to them. All of the past weeks stuff was used to create the image too, I used perspective to make the clouds seem very large and towering over the viewer. I used atmospheric perspective by making the furthest subjects desaturated and the closest one with the most contrast.

its not quite what i hoped for I wanted to completely redo everything due to comments (thank you everyone) but I was afraid that i did not have enough time. with the final I am moderately satisfied

hope you guys like it
small to prevent excessive scrolling
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m120/jdlfx/CAorg/110707dreamscapeVsml.jpg

large to get the details
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m120/jdlfx/CAorg/110707dreamscapeVLRG.jpg

[robmorfin]

Gundersen, it's digitaly painted, I agree, too colorful at that point, followed Form's advice and dulled them, thanks, really like your piece, you created a lot of depth and a very nice separation of warms and cools, the only thing I would have liked to see was different materials for the crystals and the canyon walls, very nice.

[robmorfin]

Reply to # 95:

Form,
I will post the final image after I finish responding, thanks for your reply, I agree, too many colors saturated everywhare, I added some atmospheric perspective, shadows and lights which finally dulled the not so important areas of color in the image, creating more clarity.

Thanks.

[robmorfin]

Jodali, Thanks, man, I added some atmospheric perspective to the final, will post in few minutes.

Nice piece, I specially like the idea of multiple tornados on it, if they were interacting with ea. other would have been awsome (whirling together), The main character I think would have stood up a more if you saturated its color a little bit more, right now it feels at the same depth as the background, also I think you need more shadows on the hills because the main light source is in the background and we are looking at the back of them (unless there are two suns in this planet), I love the painting technique you have, looks great.

[robmorfin]

Daldbaatar, it's really just a dream, and not more than 100 lines, didn't mean to recreate anything that exists, I think that you mean I should play with different textures, it's kind of late now to change it, I whish I saw your advise before, I will try it in other pieces, thanks.

Awesome piece, great colors, really like the depth you created and how you manage to even show the curvature of the planet, good job, just some minor comments, the canyon looks nice with random erosion at first but then it's kind of too straight, I like the 3rd perspective point for the vertical of the structures, but it's not the same as the standing columns of the canyon, also, I am not checking it on paper, but isn't the curvature of the planet sphere supossed to be related to the third point perspective as well?, never mind, still looks awesome.

[robmorfin]

Final Image,

Image of a Dreamscape, there is no meaning and no explanation of what it is, it's just an environment seen on a dream and two people inside of it just been dreamed, it is very colorful as every dream should be, the main element is a red dimmed lightsource at the left vanishing point where the focus of the image is, being the colors more saturated and warmer than the rest of the image, colors beging to dull or desaturate as they get further from the lightsource, there is also a very subtle blue lightsource on the right side of the image (outside of it) which cools off that side of the image, giving more alance to the colors, tones and values of the image.

[daldbaatar]

Well guys here is my final. Didnt have much time to invest. As i said...this month gonna be more busy. Thanks for the comments guys. Really great finals. I learned a lot from you.
As for the picture i wanted to make kind of weird perspective and colors. For the boxes i wanted to try some colors and test shades of them. As for the texture of the materials it isnt smooth. The dudes are for scale. Tried my best here. Hope im improved a bit.
Thanks a lot guys. Cant wait till the next session begins.

http://img152.imageshack.us/img152/9765/dreamat2oh9.jpg

[robmorfin]

robmorfin | Post #27:

question #1: why the HELL are you using vista?!?! BAD BOY! *SLAP ON HAND*

There is a dominating contrast between warm/cool in Van's piece - where?

in the second painting of venice, where is the dominant focal point, and how is this achieved with colour?

the first feng is great - with the obvious 2 part contrast between the warm and cool, how does he keep it from being too 50/50 balance - how does he create dominance of one temp?

i love that painting from barontieri. Good observations again. Question: what stops the saturated green foliage on the left from drawing too much attention?



Windows Vista 64 bit - that's an extra slap on hand, that's at my office, but all the painting I've been doing from another computer with Windows XP.

The dominating contrast between warm/cool in Van's piece is between the sky and the big stars.

In the second painting of venice, the dominant focal point is in the lower middle area of the image and it is achieved with colour by having the warm light oranges of the ground against the dark cool blue greenish column and dark people on the foreground as well as those people in bright saturated red clothes against the ground and against the greenish white column in the middleground

the feng contrast between the warm and cool is kept from being too 50/50 balance creating dominance of the cools by giving priority to the warms and having only small quantities at the focal point and at the light source, and desaturating the cools and saturating more the warms at the focal point.

In barontieri's I think he keeps the saturated green foliage on the left from drawing too much attention by having hints of brown rocks reflections on the top and sand color reflections on the bottom, even though they are saturated, the blend in with its surroundings.

Thanks for the observations Form.

[robmorfin]

D. Labruyere, nice enviro, adding shadows would help the piece a lot, the light source is on the other side, the storm clouds usually are purple (small hints, gray makes the image too dull, also, the light coming through the image is way too staight and looks like rain, either rain or light, you kind of difuse the edges of it and also light rays usually let some color of the background pass through at random areas.

[robmorfin]

Chaosrocks, nice piece, just some comments: the corner of the building is off perspective, should follow the same line poining at the bottom of the stairs in the foreground, it looks like you are using different light sources for the building, the arche structure, the stairs, the trees, the stones and the lake steps, also, the stones in the middle are way too saturated an look just like the water on the lake.

[robmorfin]

Agustin, very nice pieces, I specially like the second one, it looks like a rain of fire, all I see in them is environments, they are simple and great, I really like how the first one (cool one) get enough warm balance from small hints of it and the second one (warm one) does the same with small hints of cool, very nice.

[robmorfin]

rvdtor, nice piece, nice clouds, nice gradation from warm yellow to cool green blue, I like the shadow across of the building a lot, you are just missing the shadows of the lake branches, they look kind of flat.

[robmorfin]

Earendil, very nice and peaceful piece, I think you could have added a little bit mor of warms by increasing the yellow purple lightsource, specially in the reflection at the lake, it is white now.

[robmorfin]

Sorry everyone, I didn't have a chance before to comment, will try to do next week (although I am camping with my son next weekend again), will try my best, thanks for everyone's comments as well.

[Earendil]

Earendil, very nice and peaceful piece, I think you could have added a little bit mor of warms by increasing the yellow purple lightsource, specially in the reflection at the lake, it is white now.

I've got an hour. :yayca:

EDIT: Yellow purple? Welp, lol, I missed the mark. :D

EDIT EDIT: FINAL VERSION!!! O>o

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2394/1996706306_cac16e89bf_o_d.jpg

[Gundersen]

Realy nice work people! Thanks for comments on my work. At least 8 people managed the time this time! that is better then before for sure! :P hehe

Gonna take my time and comment more detailed on your work later, now its uni time for me sadly

[robmorfin]

Earendil, looks good, great job.

[Form]

Tic....



Toc....

[chaosrocks]

ya'll can relax for a minute... or furiously finish up
the maestro is sleeping
crx

[Gundersen]

/me calls the doctor "I think Forms lost it, He warns people about a deadline closeing in when its gone 12 hours ago" :P

[robmorfin]

Did Form gave us an extra 24hrs without telling us?

[Earendil]

It's a trick I tell you! :P

Great class guys! Lots of learnins goins ons heah! :yayca:

[rvdtor]

asleep ey? hmm i hestitated!!! damn it i guess i'll have to leave it as is...great job everybody i learned a lot.

[chaosrocks]

hehehe
so What's next?
crx

[Form]

hey guys, a few things came up last night that took me away from the computer. I have just finished writing up lesson 4 and am starting to review this week's work. Because i was a bit overloaded and didnt get to everyone's work throughout the week, I have a bit of writing to do. So you can all chill for another few hours. Im also taking mum out to dinner, so she might arrive before i finish up here.... anyway, im on it :)
A

[Form]

jodali | post #85

this is some great further thinking on the piece :) the comments on turner are great. He definitely was a romantic painter and one of the most recognisable. You have pinpointed their emphasis on the natural world and the infantisation of the built environment therein. This is a great example of this week's focus topic - using colour for a specific purpose. The super saturated colours aren't used without reason, but rather as a specific tool to enhance the vision the artist has.

and 86

it was great seeing this start - your piece really evolved to the final iteration. You started off with a nice pallette and it ended up benefiting the final piece too.

[Form]

agustin | post #90

I'll be trying to work on the structure of the class for 2nd intake. The problem is that most people, once they reach a point where they are (somewhat) qualified to teach, they are probably full time employed. I will always do my best to be around as much as possible, but some weeks are busier than others of course :) furthermore, an important part of working in production is the ability to work independantly and under direction together - which includes critiquing yourself and others of the same level.

[Form]

rvdtor | post #100:

I'm taking this to be your final production piece? There is something cool about the concept, it has a kind of retro Klayman kind of feel to it which I dig ;)

As far as critique, i think you should have pushed your colour knowledge further this week, you lack variation from depth effects - same thing we were touching on last week. For instance the colour of the water is all the same and doesnt change as it recedes further into the background. Also, the way you constructed the image with the hill filling the screen makes it look staged as you have no real background to establish depth.

The trees seem a bit odd and are far too smooth-edged to be convincing as trees. Also, dont forget that when an object is lit, the lit area doesnt (necessarily) become the exact colour of the light source. With a big diffuse outdoor source like this, i would expect the yellow light to lighten and warm the lit side of the tree, but not turn it the exact colour. That makes it comes across as a specular and makes the trees look like they are made out of plastic.

Finally, watch your shadows -
1. Shadow EDGES become diffuse the further they get from the casting object. The bottom edge of the main object's shadow is too sharp relative to the rest of the shadow. Also, the shape of the shadow doesnt seem to match the start and endpoints of the object, and there is no curve to go with the curve of the hill.
2. There are no shadows from the trees on the water?

I like the little figure you included. Is that you?

[Form]

rvdtor | post #117

oops, i didnt see this one when i was reviewing the thread earlier. The shadow works better now, but most of the critique still applies. I think the way you set about changing the shape of the object may be the wrong way to tackle the problem. DOnt forget to change the canvas size, flip and move elements around as well. Ryan church is really good at doing that. Getting used to 'restitching' afterwards eventually leads to developing a much more organic and freeing painting style.

[Form]

Chaosrocks | post #121

Hello James :) (a cookie if you can tell me on msn what im alluding to! HARDY HARDY HAR HAR!)

Yeah, I struggle in painter too - don't ask me for tips there ;)

So, first thing im asking, is what is this place? I know its a dream environment, but i guess it lacks a sense of design... the scale of things is confusing (and it doesnt work in a 'weird' way like escher's stuff). In relation to the cushions, the archways are way too small... so is the doorway... or the cushions are too big?

You need to define your source of light. The shadows on all objects are different. Also, defining the temperature, and establishing some sort of light/shadow warm/cool relationship is important. Im not sure the shadows of the cushions work being so extremely saturated? think about temperature, as well as the reflect light from the environment, how would it affect things?

And yeah, your own obsrvations that your scenes look like stage sets is correct. I want you to work towards breaking away from this and making more organic scenes. Even if this means drawing a top down map of the area first and making sure it isnt stage-like, then paint that up...

Finally, you would benefit from more practise with your painting style, keeping your brushes big and confident and working in big shapes of light and colour. Then make sure to refine your edges as you wrap up the piece to avoid confusion in the viewers eye. a lot of your shadows are 'noisy' and there are strange strokes throughout the piece that dont seem to be justified (like the patch of dark colour in front of the steps?)

glad to have you with us :)

[Form]

gundersen | post #123:

Alright! Now we're cooking with gas man... and gas man is pleased! I think you have been very succesful in applying knowledge you have picked up over previous weeks to each new piece - for which you deserve credit!

First thing that stands out is a design issue - your shapes are somewhat confusing. Things like the crystal shards (the hanging ones) looking like coccoons, the lack of ropes holding some up but others not... the strange construction of the wooden platforms that dont really make sense from a physics point of view.... things like that. Also the shape of the crystal is kind of strange? looks more like crumpled paper due to the overlapping flat shapes - it needs to be given some form and dimension perhaps. Its a bit 'shape' right now.

As for the crane people were talking about, i think the problem isnt that it overlaps, but more that it doesnt do so enough. The overlap works well in establishing depth in the image - our eye needs to know what is behind what, and the most efficient way to do that by far is overlap. But the way it only comes in a tiny bit and is sort of thin and spindly makes its edges run into the brushstrokes of the crystal, and the forms blend together instead of contrasting and creating depth.

Finally, the battle you have between the warm and cool lightsource needs some development. Most importantly, you have to consider the strength of your lightsources. You have a massive area being lit up by an apparently very bright primary source (assuming its sunlight from outside). Then you have wee tiny little lamps as your warm contrast. This is great, but there is now ay they would light the area up like that - its not believable. Also, it creates a 50/50 split, which (mostly) isnt a good thing. Balance actually doesnt mean exactly balancing 50/50. Your warm should act as a counterpoint to the dominant blue, just a touch of it to stop the blue getting out of hand. This can also be a focus-drawing device. At the moment, your two lightsources are warring, and that is drawing our attention more to that conflict than to the subject and the painting itself - and when that happens, the illusion is broken.

Great development from you man! And the atmospheric perspective is kickin. Keep sharpening those foreground edges :)

A

[Form]

agustin poratti | post #125

This is great! probably not the most you could have done as far as depth and proper forms etc, but what i do like is the colour, and that was our objective after all!

What I like most is the clarity and simplicity that you set out to achieve. You decided on a warm/cool relationship and stuck to it. More importantly, you let one dominate and the other recede. The dyptic highlights this perfectly between the two pieces - one cool dominant and the other warm. I think the way you have handled the touches of light is really confident...

I wish I could offer more critique, but the ambiguous nature of the pieces makes that hard. All i can tell you is the colour works and achieves the objectives you set out for yourself. Good work :)

By the way, this reminds me a lot of my own dreams. I have a lot of dreams about blinding light and ambiguous figures :)

[Form]

D. Labruyere | Post #126:

Ok - first things first, i dont see warm vs cool... or a serious colour relationship happening here. The image is flat due to the lack of colour variation throughout.

The lack of atmospheric perspective or a proper background make it feel staged, and the way you habe used pure white as a light source makes it feel washed out and undersaturated. You really need some touches of strong colour in the foreground to help set off against the desaturated background. The shape of the light coming down is also really static and makes it look like a cut and paste job - did you think about the angle of it? Composition? overlap? etc? Why is the archway so flat - how come you chose not to construct it using perspective? I feel you could have worked a bit harder on this one - sorry i wasnt about to critique you earlier though man, that was my bad. Also, there is no rationale behind your colour choices which was part of the task this week.

[Form]

jodali | #128:

This is great!! Most of all, I'm really impressed by how much your final product lines up with your intentions. I call that 'succesful'. I think that thought of 'impending doom' is exactly what i get from this, and its very dreamlike.

I think the composition is a bit crazy - the horizon is VERY tilted (dangerous, but can work in the right situations)... there isnt much overlap, and the bottom left corner has a bit of 'falloff' partially worsened by the sloping horizon... i think the monster could have more overlap with the tornados, so it looks like its coming out of them... at the moment its hard to tell whether it is in front of or behind them. I like your warm/cool relationship. I like the brushwork (works well when you scale it down) and i like the action - the small figure hiding from the evil sky wyrm. It tells a good story!

Only other thing to ask is what that saturated streak on the ground under the monster is - a reflection? The material of the ground doesnt seem like it would reflect? Im a bit confused about that. Great job :)

[Form]

robmorfin | post #133:

main thing I'm asking about are the contradictions between your post and your painting. You say the colours further from the light source are desaturating... but that isn't the case. Some of your most saturated colours are the ones furthest from your light source. Also, you say you have a lightsource that is red, but none of the objects in the scene are responding to that - it actually looks like it is just emmitting white light with no colour. You dont have a warm/cool relationship, or any relationship apparent in the piece - all the colours feel very abstractly chosen. There is no real sense of depth or form and when i squint the value range is very narrow....
I also dont see the second blue light source you mention in your post?

[Form]

daldbaatar | post #134:

great final! not really sure what is going on (subject wise) in the top left, but the colour work is looking good. The temperature relationship isnt super strong but it is there to a degree, and the light has a nice 'sunrise' feeling to it. What i really like are the reflected lights you have thrown around as reflections from the shapes (dont forget them on the ground too). The warm fire in the canyon also sets up a nice warm-cool-warm contrasting on different planes.

Watch your edges - a lot of soft edges here are getting lost and making the forms look muddy (for instance the wires look too thick and wobbly). Good attempt at the texture but maybe a *bit* too strong? ALso the light (top right) in the sky seems to stop a bit abruptly?

[Form]

earendil | post #142:

well we can see that all those sets of revisions that went into this paid off! What we have here is a narrative that works - and thats important. The action is clear and we are drawn in by the story.

You havnt got a written justification for your colours, but i like the relationship of cool to warm - the (relative) warmth of the light on the right balances the composition and the reflection really works. What helps the balance is that the large, slightly warm bit is balanced by the smaller but more saturated warmth of the character - that is working towards the kind of balance we want to see. I like the suggestion of texture and the atmosphere of the forest feels very fairy tale :).

As with the others, watch out for small brush syndrome (it IS the size that counts) and keep your shapes big and readable - some of the subtleties in the shadow area are a bit confusing and contrast too much, drawing the eye.

[daldbaatar]

daldbaatar | post #134:

great final! not really sure what is going on (subject wise) in the top left, but the colour work is looking good. The temperature relationship isnt super strong but it is there to a degree, and the light has a nice 'sunrise' feeling to it. What i really like are the reflected lights you have thrown around as reflections from the shapes (dont forget them on the ground too). The warm fire in the canyon also sets up a nice warm-cool-warm contrasting on different planes.

Watch your edges - a lot of soft edges here are getting lost and making the forms look muddy (for instance the wires look too thick and wobbly). Good attempt at the texture but maybe a *bit* too strong? ALso the light (top right) in the sky seems to stop a bit abruptly?

Yeah man. The thing is that i think i concentrated too much on colors there. And for the cloud was supposed to be really dark. The boxes had to have a rusty effect. But i couldnt really know how to do it. Thanks man.

[Form]

239387

let me know if there are any mistakes :P im a bit tired.

[Form]

daldbaatar - for a rust effect, get a texture brush, with a medium value/sat orange colour, set brush mode to colour burn and flow to something low around 10% and softly brush in (tweak for individual painting needs).

[Form]

Congrats on the HP's this round!!

I was tossing up giving one person a Pro for their prod piece but i feel they can push it further next week... OOH, OOH THE TENSION, WHO IS IT!?!?! :D

Really awesome to see how much involvement there was this week - so much discussion, sharing of work in progress... its really great to see! I hope you guys form a tight group and can keep working together long after the class is over. See you in 4th week :)

GJ
A

[Agustin Poratti]

hmmmm.. i believe that person to be earendil.

[Earendil]

Glad I redrew.

Crap, I forgot to post the why's, didn't I? One sec...

[robmorfin]

Congrats on th HPs guys, Earendil, great job!

Thanks Form, I am going to look closer and see what I did wrong.

[Gundersen]

Thank you Form. Ill work my ass off for at least one Pro before the end :)

[robmorfin]

Thanks a lot to Barionteri for giving me permission to use his image "Beach" in this post: http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showpost.php?p=1517744&postcount=30

I really apreciate it, here is a link for his website, check it out, he is a great artist: http://www.barontieri.com/

Thanks.

[robmorfin]

Also, thanks a lot to Feng Zhu for giving me permission to use his image.

I really apreciate it, here is a link for his website, check it out, he is also one of the best: www.fengzhudesign.com/ (http://www.fengzhudesign.com/)

Thanks.