Class Notes - July 14, 2010

• 2 general approaches to drawing:
• 2D - drawing the shapes that things create.  Comparisons are made in two dimensions: plumb lines, angles, distances in picture plane, shapes (not volumes).  Requires you to be fairly meticulous and precise.
• 3D - drawing the volumes that things are made up of.  Requires a lot of knowledge of perspective.
• Best to understand and use both approaches
• Fixing a drawing
• There are always at least two solutions to a perceived problem:
• If a vase, for example, looks too tall, it could either be too tall or too skinny
• Instead of immediately looking at the area of the problem itself, a good first step is to look for information elsewhere in the picture to determine which solution is best 
• For example, if we immediately decide our vase is too tall and make it shorter, we might miss the fact that if we view it in comparison to the other objects, we might realize that the height is right, and in fact the vase is too skinny.
• Negative space
• Shapes around an object also dictate its shape.

• In this classic illusion, the white vase is the negative space for the two black faces, and vice versa.
• From the 2D/optical approach, drawing can be looked at as solving a puzzle of negative shapes and positive shapes

Article on Color Mixing

This past weekend I stumbled on a good article on color mixing that David Rourke wrote over at his blog:

http://rourkevisualart.com/wordpress/articles/color-and-color-mixing/

Class Notes - July 7, 2010

• Edges
• First get edge contrast
• Then get edge quality
• Frustration
• When you don't know, there's a tendency to rush
• Better to see what you're doing wrong than to get it right
• Requires slowing down
• Ways to adjust edge quality
• Brush it in correctly the first time (most difficult)
• Mix intermediary tone and lay it in with a small brush
• Lay down a sharp edge with wet paint on both sides of the edge, then soften with a clean, dry brush
• For very soft edges, zig-zag across edge, then smooth
• Scrape off with palette knife
• Scumble over dry paint
• Don't go too far along an edge without some change in edge quality

Modeling Factor Animation - Cylinder to Pitcher Base

Here's an example of how the shadow, halftone, and light would change as a cylinder changes into the base of a pitcher:

Class Notes - June 23, 2010

• Be your own best teacher
• Engage in ongoing research on yourself, the materials you use, and the world around you.
• Use other teachers as fodder for own research
• It's your responsibility to extract as much out of the experience as possible
• Sometimes that will mean asking a lot of questions
• Sometimes that will mean shutting up and listening/watching as much as possible
• If the teacher is terrible, look for other students to learn from
• Don't sit around like a baby bird and wait to get fed.
• On the other hand, don't reinvent the wheel
• Study with the best you can find.  Do research about what that means.
• I've found the best way to learn is to just accept what the teacher says and do it- even if it conflicts with something another teacher has told you, or that you've found to be true in your own research.
• Of course there's some threshold to this, but the point is to get as much from the teacher as possible.  Being cocky might deprive you of learning something new, finding out that something you thought was right is actually incorrect or incomplete.
  
• However, don't drink the Kool-Aid.
• It's being passed out in spades in the art world.
• Be especially aware of disciples of the teacher, who are often the biggest dealers of Kool-Aid.
• And don't think that classes with anybody will make up for time in front of the easel.
• Knowledge is cheap- you just need to come across it and then you have it.  There is no replacement for experience.
•  You can be unaware of a fact or have it wrong for years, and then come across the correct information.  Then you'll just have it (provided that a] you're willing to take the time to understand it properly, and b] you're not too proud to admit you were wrong)
• However, you can't slack off practicing, say, your brush-handling skills for years, and then suddenly read something that gets you to the level you would be at if you'd been practicing that whole time.
• Developing sensitivity
• You can't learn sensitivity from a book.
• Develop a way to test yourself so you can track your progress.
• Also, if you tried something new you can see if it helped or hindered you.
• Practice!  There's just no way around it...
• Use an old phone book instead of paper towels when possible.
• If you want certain results, you have to be willing to put in a certain amount of work and care to achieve them.
• Do you think Van Dyck's palette was a mess, or that he worked haphazardly?
• Create a situation that gives you the best chance to achieve what you're going for.
•  Checking against swatches
• When checking colors against a swatch, put a small bit of paint directly on the swatch, and make sure the paint is smooth and flat.  Highlights and bumps on the paint can distort your perception of what color the paint was.
• If your swatches are under glass, be aware that glass is usually slightly green and will also shift the value of the swatch.
• Reflections on the glass will distort  your perception of the values.  Use a black board to eliminate as much reflection as possible.
• Also be aware of the shadow casting from the paint to the surface below the glass.  This shadow can distort your perception of value.
• You can't expect perfect objectivity, but you can set up situations where you're more likely to achieve it or encounter it.
• Give yourself the best chance to be objective.
• Get your rough draft down before you start editing individual paragraphs and sentences
• You need to view each individual part relative to the whole
• When mixing strings, for example, don't start correcting individual mixtures until you've got a mixture for each step in the string.
• Asking "What did we learn in class today?" at the end of class is helpful for both students and teacher.

Budget Mahl Stick

Here's how to make a cheap hanging mahl stick that has the advantage of holding itself up when you let go.

What you'll need:

• A wire coat hanger (completely wire- no cardboard)
• Clippers capable of cutting the coat hanger wire
• A dowel rod that's 2-4 feet long, and thick enough to not bend when pressure is applied
• Duct Tape

Here's how to make it:

1. Cut the twisty part and hook off of a coat hanger.
2. Form the remaining wire into a narrow "U" shape- so one end is rounded and the other end is the two points where you cut the hook off.  
3. Tape the points to the end of a dowel rod.  The rounded end should be sticking off the end, along with about 8-10 inches of wire.
4. Cover up all of the coat hanger with the tape- both the part on the dowel and the part sticking off.
5. Fold the 8-10 inches of wire over over to make a hook.  Then end result will look like a cane.  

To use it, just hook it over the top of your painting, and it will hang there if you let go.

Photos to come soon...

Class Notes - June 16, 2010

• Painting while tired
• Don't crash your painting 
• Recognize & acknowledge that you're tired.
• Set small specific goals.  Take your time and do them right.
• A thought from Gus about painting tired-
• Come up with a series of questions to ask yourself when you're tired.  If you can't answer them, or answer slowly, think about limiting what you work on.
• "Holding the local"
• The modeling factors for each form should be assigned values such that the form as a whole reads as a form with the correct local value.
• The upshot of this is that the modeling factors take on values relative to the local color of the object.
• Thus, the shadow area for a lighter object should be lighter than the shadow area for a darker object.
• In the end, you should end up with a hierarchy of values within each modeling factor across the various forms.
• Searching for information
• An easy and very helpful place to start is the lightest and darkest spot in the painting.  Find the darkest spot, and estimate its value.  If it's not dark enough to use a value 0, then make a mental note that whatever value you choose is likely to be the lowest you will use for the painting.  Same for the lightest value- if it's not white (value 10), then a little alarm bell should go off if you ever find yourself reaching for pure white.
• After establishing the limits of your value range, use this information to make estimates about the values of other spots.
• Illusion of reflected light on cylinder with black background
• Shadow area was one flat color, but appeared to have reflected light due to simultaneous contrast.
• To make corrections on an area that is still wet, use more paint to cover it up.  If there's already a lot of paint on the area you need to correct, scrape it down with your palette knife before correcting.
• Examine how you hold your brush
• What grips are conducive to what kind of strokes
• Don't let your grip dictate what you can & can't do
• Switch up for different situations
• Modeling factors as cross-sections
• In three dimensions it's more obvious that the terminator, for example, goes all the way around the form.
• On a sphere, half of the sphere is actually in shadow, and half is in light- but we often only see a portion of the light and a portion of the shadow.
• Think of modeling factors as cross-sections- imagine cutting with a knife.
• The first time painting is like the first time on a unicycle.  You're just getting used to the physical act.