Georgetown Atelier
October 9th, 2011, 08:04 PM
The practice of drawing with a few select colors of ‘chalk’ is traditionally referred to as ’Drawing Aux Trois Crayons’. Literally speaking this means ‘with three pencils’, and refers to a drawing done with black, red (sanguine), and white. Drawings or paintings done in two colors such as black charcoal on white paper, black charcoal and white chalk, brown and white chalk etc., are considered monochromatic. They are monochromatic not because they lack color necessarily, but because they lack color temperature relationships. Adding a red pencil to the repertoire opens the door to depict color temperature relationships, and thereby steps into the ‘territory’ of color and its principles.
A teacher of mine used to frequently say, “Drawing and Value are pivotal, Color is flexible“. Because of this most Ateliers (including my own) dedicate a large portion of their curriculum training students to become adept with drawing and value before stepping into color. It’s easy to become enamored with color, its potential complexity, and give it too much credit for its role in representational paintings. Drawing and Value are almost always the ‘workers’ who build the stage that Color can dance upon.
The tutorial itself contains images for illustration. The rest of it can be found at:
http://www.georgetownatelier.com/tutorials/figure-trois-crayons/
A teacher of mine used to frequently say, “Drawing and Value are pivotal, Color is flexible“. Because of this most Ateliers (including my own) dedicate a large portion of their curriculum training students to become adept with drawing and value before stepping into color. It’s easy to become enamored with color, its potential complexity, and give it too much credit for its role in representational paintings. Drawing and Value are almost always the ‘workers’ who build the stage that Color can dance upon.
The tutorial itself contains images for illustration. The rest of it can be found at:
http://www.georgetownatelier.com/tutorials/figure-trois-crayons/