Reading Notes 18 - April 17th

100 Tuesday Tips

Printing Guide -- Business Card

Portfolio 101

1.  Know what you want in your finished portfolio.

2.  Only put your BEST pieces in your book.

     - Best piece = first page

     - 2nd Best piece = last page

     - 3rd Best piece = middle

3.  Rhythm

     - Make sure it tells a story.

Reading Notes 17 - April 3rd

Color and Light

Chapter 7: Premixing

Mixing Color Strings

Color string: a group of prepared paint blobs of a given hue mixed with a palette knife in a set of steps from light to dark values.

*This saves time when you're painting from observation.

Advantages of Premixing:

1.  Premixing uses less palette surface area than does free mixing.

2.  You can premix generous batches with a palette knife instead of using a brush.

3.  Premixing saves time in the long run.

Gamut Mapping

Gamut: the entire group of possible colors for a given painting.

Good color comes from not only what you put in a composition, but what you leave out.

Polygon superimposed over the color wheel represents the gamut of a particular painting.

Creating Gamut Masks

Create a "universal" gamut shape you can slide around on top of a color wheel to create new color palettes.

Advantages:

1.  You're not limited to the haphazard choices of pigment-based limited palettes.

2.  By rotating the gamut mask around the color wheel, you can invent and preview new color schemes you may not have thought of otherwise.

3.  When taken as a whole, the colors within the gamut with their subjective primaries and neutrals feel sufficient for a complete color scheme, even though a lot has been left out.

Shapes of Color Schemes

Color gamuts can range from using only one side of the color wheel to spanning a wide range of colors.

Most common shape is a triangle.  It usually includes a dominant full-intensity hue and two subordinate, lower-chroma colors to balance it.

Can range from narrow to broad.

Narrow: primary

Broad: triad - moody and subjective

Mood and accent: Most of the picture lies in one color environment with just one accent area from across the wheel and no intermediate mixture.

Mixing a Controlled Gamut

Once you choose a gamut, you can mix strings of the colors defined by it.

These strings of color become the source colors for the entire painting.

Color Scripting

In a sequential art form, such as a graphic novel, illustrated book, or animated film, no color scheme stands alone.  Every page, panel, or frame must be seen in relation to the one that precedes and follows it.

Reading Notes 16 - March 29th

Color and Light

Chapter 5 - Painting and Pigments

Pgs 96 - 99

Warm Underpainting

Prime the canvas with an insistent warm underpainting.

This forces you to make mixing decisions.

The bits of underpainting that peak through the layered strokes will provide additional contrast.

Sky Panels

Sky panels are surfaces prepared with a sky gradation as a base layer for future painting.

Pgs 104-107

Limited Palettes

Limiting you color palette can keep your color schemes lean and strong.  It can create a more unified or harmonious effect.

More colors don't make a better color scheme.

1.  More harmony.

2.  Forces out of color-mixing habits.

3.  Limited palettes are compact.

The Mud Debate

Try both ideas ("beware of mud" or "mud is a myth") and see what you like.

Reading Notes 15 - March 27th

100 Tuesday Tips

Highlights

Warm object = cool highlight

Cool object = warm highlight

Good Tangents

Good when...

 - Creating a new abstract shape.

 - When there's a shape breaking what would have been a bad tangent.

Beware of Tangents

Most common tangents:

1.  Continuous long line (straight or curve).

2.  Touch each other/tension points (within the drawing itself or the edge of your canvas).

*See previous image for visual guide*

How do you Paint?

Advice from Bob Kato:

- Back to Front

- Dark to Light

- Dull to Bright

- General to Detail

Painting Eyes 101

1.  Know your light source.

2.  Think basic material.

3.  Combine them and add detail (eyelash or shadow).

Hue + Value + Saturation

Hue: the color itself

Value: how dark or light the hue is in greyscale

Saturation: how intense the brightness of the hue

Stylizing an Object

1. Draw studies from reference.

2. Only draw final from studies.

*TIP: Push everything a little more than it really is.

Stylized Fur

1.  Silhouette

2.  Interior -- do indication

3.  Combine both

Painting Hair

1.  Start with a clean silhouette of the overall shape.

2.  Create shape within a shape.  Combination of big, medium and small.

3.  Add extra strands to make it look more organic.

How to Paint Hair

1.  Base color

2.  Add dark w/soft brush to create volume.

3.  Paint hair on a separate layer.  Use a more saturated version of the base color.

4.  Add highlight.

5.  Add lines to create shape separation and hair strands.

6.  Final highlight.

Reading Notes 14 - March 22nd

Graphic LA - 106-127

Process:

Shape design, assigning color, adding foreground, more details, modeling form, erasing edges, details and adjustments, additional form finding.

Final stages involve adding detail, refining edges, refining shapes, adjusting color and value, adjusting atmosphere and organizing/orchestrating/fine tuning the overall effect/impression.

Find...

3 main shapes

3 main values

3 main levels

Flat block in and then slowly build up detail.  Always keeping perspective spot on!

Color and Light

Chapter 8 - Visual Perception

A World Without Color

Draining color our of an image, it is still possible to understand what's going on, but much of the emotional flavor is missing without color.

Tone and Color:

Rods and Cones cooperate to create an interpretation of reality.

Is Moonlight Blue?

It's actually slightly reddish.  It appears blue because our visual system plays tricks on us when viewing objects in very dim light.

Moonlight is sunlight reflected from the moon's grey surface.

Edges and Depth

Edges: painterly control of blurriness, especially along the boundary of a form.

Depth of Field -

Creating the illusion of focus.  Our mind sees everything in focus at once because our eyes adjust to different depths very quickly.

Color Oppositions

Complements suggest an opposition of elemental principles like fire and ice.

Antagonistic pairings seem to correspond to the way our visual systems are wired.

Color Constancy

Color constancy refers to our automatic habit of interpreting local colors as stable and unchanging, regardless of the effects of colored illumination, the distraction of cast shadows, and the variations of form modeling.

We base a scene off of context clues.  We are constantly make such inferences.

Adaptation and Contrast

The experience of one color affects the way we perceive other colors.

The appearance of colors is influenced by 5 factors:

1.  Simultaneous contrast - background inducing opposite qualities in an object sitting in front of it.

2.  Successive contrast - Looking at one color changes the next color we see.

3.  Chromatic adaptation - Balanced impression of color and light levels from experience.

4.  Color constancy - Chromatic adaptation and experience means colors appear consistent.

5.  Size of an object - The smaller the object, the less distinct the color appears to be.

Appetizing and Healing Colors

Can certain colors or certain groupings of colors promote well-being, or even healing?

"Colors express the main psychic functions of man."

Color associations:

Using colors to the benefit of what the viewer is supposed to feel or do.

Reading Notes 13 - March 15th

Graphic LA - pgs 38-67

The effect of perspective is more important than the actual objects.

Simple design forced into the fewest values.

Feedback loop while drawing: is it looking the way I pictured it?  How am I picturing it?

Block in value pattern that expresses the scene clearly.  Then convert to color.

Graphic in nature.  Dimensional in execution.

It's about the larger shapes and design AND the idea behind it.

When sketching from life, you have to alter the values to produce the design that makes the scene easiest to read and states the intent/focus.

Find and emphasize the rhythms!

Color and Light - Chapter 10

Atmospheric Effects

Sky Blue

- Color of the sky changes based on where you're looking depending on the time of day.

- Mixtures must shift from top to bottom as well as from side to side.

Atmospheric Perspective

The way the appearance of objects changes as they are viewed at a distance through layers of illuminated air.

- The bold colors of the foreground gradually transform until they match the sky.

- Dust particles and distance have an impact on the atmospheric conditions.

Reverse Atmospheric Perspective

General rule: Warm colors advance and cool colors recede.

Broken rule: The entire scene gets warmer as it goes back.

This happens when vapor or dust particles in the air gather around the light source (usually the sun).

Golden Hour Lighting

Strong color is fleeting in nature.

- Dawn or dusk are the times when colors become bold and dramatic.

The sun is so low in the sky, the light travels almost parallel to the surface of the earth.

Planes and objects are lit directly at this time - enhancing the colors we see.

Sunsets

Sunsets provide many colors because the sun is interacting with so many different layers of air, dust, and clouds.

When air is full of moisture and dust, the sunset will be accompanied by more conspicuous red and yellow clouds.  Boldest colors will be found nearest where the sun crosses the horizon.

Fog, Mist, Smoke, Dust

Contrast drops off rapidly as forms recede in space.

Light seems to come from all directions.

Rainbows

Tips:

- The colors of the rainbow should always be lighter than the background, because the colored light of the rainbow is added to the light in the scene behind it.

Skyholes and Foliage

Tips:

- Smaller skyholes should be painted a little darker than the overall sky behind the tree.

- Soften the edges of smaller skyholes.

- Include transparency in foliage.

Sunbeams and Shadowbeams

Occur when:

- High screen of clouds, foliage, or architecture is punctured by a few openings.

- The air is filled with dust, vapor, smoke, or smog.

- The view is toward the sun.

Dappled Light

Sunlight shining through the spaces between the leaves of a tree.

Spots will move and/or disappear when the wind blows and cloud coverage sets in.

Cloud Shadows

Clouds interrupt the view towards the sun.

Patches of sunlight drift across the landscape surrounded by cloud shadows.

USE THIS TOOL TO CONTROL THE VIEWS ATTENTION!

Illuminated Foreground

Illuminate the immediate foreground in light and put the middle distance into shadow.

Snow and Ice

Snow is denser than clouds or foam, so it's whiter.

Snow picks up everything around it, especially in shadow.

Cast shadows on snow take on the color of the sky.  Shadows on a partly cloudy day are grayer.

Water: Reflection and Transparency

Reflection: light rays bounce off the surface

Refraction: light rays travel down into the water

Mountain Streams

Water in mountain streams behaves differently in mountain streams.

Color of the stream bottom changes.

Foam forms sometimes.

Color Underwater

Water selectively filters out colors of light passing through it.

At different levels, different light is filtered out.  This results in different lighting.