Reading 4 Notes - Feb 1

Graphic L.A.

Pgs 68-75, 96-105, 129-133

Everything is an excuse to show depth, overlap, and form.

Always ask what is the simplest symbol that best describes the shape?  Don't be afraid to reduce complex forms into simple symbols.

Feel free to alter the size and placement of objects within a scene to create a better composition.

Draw now, judge later.

Black and White Truths:

 -  thumbnail it out.

 -  30-70 ratio (mostly dark or mostly light)

 -  en masse perspective

 -  contour/isoparms (form understanding)

 -  BOLD SHAPES

Always search for the best, simplest arrangement of shapes and tones.

Change proportion, move shapes around, explore the arrangement.

Reading 3 Notes - January 30th

100 Tuesday Tips

Drawing with Pen

Drawing with pen helps to convey your ideas quickly and, with practice, more confidently.

Types of Shots

Straight-on (Flat):

 - Focuses on the performance.

 - Passive or neutral.

Extreme Wide-shot:

 - Establishes shot.

 - Can convey a stronger emotion.

Close-up:

 - Shows something/someone in detail.

 - Used as story set up (objects and/or people)

Dutch Angle (Tilted):

 - Dynamic.

 - Used for action, mystery, or danger, etc...

Upshot:

 - On character: gives sense of importance, power, or dominance.

 - On background: dramatic

Downshot:

 - Characters feel smaller, defenseless, and acted upon.

Group Shot:

 - Establishes leader and/or outcast.

 - Fresh view of setting, feelings, and/or plot.

Over-the-Shoulder:

 - Dialogue or point of view shot.

Back to the Camera:

 - Audience projects meaning on characters journey.

 - Characters point of view.

Looking Back Over Shoulder:

 - Intimacy

 - Revealing shot

Cutting on Action:

 - Can be used instead of an "establishing shot".

 - Cuts straight to action.

Silhouettes in Storytelling

What can they be used to do?
 - Create contrast/drama.

 - Introduce a mysterious character, object, etc.

 - Emphasize what a character is looking at.

 - Symbolize intimacy.

 - Focus on importance of character or group.

 - Sense of threat.

 - Show less but feel more.

Color and Light - Chapter 3

Light and Form

The Form Principle

 - Light striking a geometric solid creates an orderly and predictable series of tones.
 - Simplifying planes and texture creates a more visually appealing image.
 - Always try to state the form in terms of the simplest truth: light and shadow.

Separation of Light and Shadow

 - Light and shadow will sometimes look different and sometimes look the same to our minds as we look at an object or objects.
 - Be careful not to play up secondary sources too much.

Cast Shadows

 - Cast shadows reflect the color and temperature of surrounding objects.
 - Shadow edges are closely related to the nature of the light source.  Soft light will cast a shadow with a soft edge.  Hard light will cast a shadow with a sharp edge.  The edge will fade with more distance between the light source and the shadow.
 - Can be used to show depth.

Half Shadow

 - Creates drama to light the top half of a subject and leave the rest in shadow.
 - Same principles of cast shadows apply when leaving the bottom half in shadow.

Occlusion Shadows

 - Occlusion shadows occur at any place two forms meet or an object touches the floor.
 - Help in grounding objects.

Three-Quarter Lighting

 - Light reaches most of the visible form - leaving only a small part in  shadow.
 - Can be drawn or painted from either side of the object.  Different perspectives give different views.

Frontal Lighting

 - Very little shadow is shown.
 - Good lighting if you want to show the local color of the object or form.

Edge Lighting

 - Comes from behind and touches only the sides of the form.  It usually requires a strong source of light to clearly define the edge.

Contre Jour

 - When an object blocks out the light source.
 - The object blocking out the source of light becomes prominently a silhouette.

Light from Below

 - Dramatic, sinister, or magical feelings associated with light from below.
 - Can be very effective in night scenes.

Reflected Light

 - Think of how the moon reflects the light of the sun in our night sky.  The moon has become a secondary source of light depending upon the primary source.
 1.  Upfacing planes are cool and downfacing planes are warm in shadows.
 2.  Reflected light falls off quickly further away from the source.
 3.  The effect is clearest when removing other sources of reflected and fill light.
 4.  The color of the shadow is the sum of all the sources of reflected illumination.
 5.  Vertical surfaces usually receive two sources of illumination: warm ground light and blue sky light.

Spotlighting

 - Draws attention to the most important part of the image.

Limitations of the Form Principle

 - Some forms such as clouds, trees, and hair simply don't follow the regular form principles.  If they do, they begin to look like plaster instead of their own materials.

Reading 2 Notes - January 25th

Color and Light

Chapter 4 - Elements of Color

Rethinking the Color Wheel

Light is bent or refracted and wrapped around a circle to create a color wheel.
Primaries: red, yellow, blue.
Secondaries: green, orange, violet.
Complements: blue and orange, yellow and violet, red and green.
Traditional Wheel vs other ideas:
 - Traditional has a few problems mostly regarding the use of the terms "primary" and "secondary."
 - YURMBY wheel uses six equal primaries: yellow, red, magenta, blue, cyan, and green.

Chroma and Value

Color can be defined in terms of two dimensions: hue - where it appears around the edge of the color wheel, and chroma - how pure or grayed-down it appears.

A third dimension to consider for color mixture, is the value or lightness.

Local Color

Local color is the color of the surface of an object as it appears close up in white light.
When painting local color, however, making modifications to the colors you mix will result in the colors being slightly different.

Grays and Neutrals

Grays or neutrals are the opposite of intense colors.
Grays and neutrals are an artist's best friend.
 - They provide a settings for bright color accents.
 - Mix grays from blue and orange, red and green, or violet and yellow.  Placing these color accents near the gray will harmonize.
 - Gray is the sauce of the color scheme.

The Green Problem

Tips For Handling Green:
1.  Mix greens only from various blues and yellows.  The result is weaker and more varied, both qualities you want.
2.  Avoid monotony.  Vary mixtures of greens at both the small and large scale.
3.  Mix a supply of ping or reddish gray and weave it in and out of the greens.
4.  Prime the canvas with pinks or reds, so they show through to enliven the greens.

Gradation

Color gradation transitions smoothly from one to another.  The shift can occur from one hue to another, or from a light color to a dark color, or from a dull color to a saturated one.

Scenes will have several systems of gradations going on at once.  Usually it takes planning to convey each.

Tints

Adding white to a color raises it to a tint or a "pastel" color.

Paler ranges of colors help convey a feeling of light.

Using darker-toned colors in other parts of the painting helps for the sake of contrast.

Graphic L.A. PGS 18-37

Thumbnails:

Start by finding the value PATTERN that best represents the scene, which means making design CHOICES and not just "copying."

Good design contrasts the area of visual rest with visual complexity.

Shape/design = large rhythms

Form = contours/etching/hatching

Thumbnail it out... Always explore the possibilities.

Searching for the composition should take as much exploration as "rendering" the image.  Ultimately, the staging is what tells its story.

Is the design interesting and "readable" in just TWO values?

Find the lightest light and darkest dark right away, then work back to front getting values and drawing correct before moving on to the next part.

Reading 1 Notes - January 18th

Color and Light - chapter 1: Tradition

Old Master's Color:

Light and color were precious to the old masters - they didn't have hundreds of available pigments.
Example:

Jan Vermeer, The Lacemaker

The Academic Tradition:

1.  Science of Perception - Colors can only be understood in relation to one another.  No color exists in isolation.
2.  New Pigments - New colors required artists to seek out new subjects to show of new colors to their full advantage.
3.  Plein-Air Practice -  "...in painting the first thing is to look for the general impression of color..."

Open-Air Painting in Britain:

Working out-of-doors was essential to capture the truthful effects of light and atmosphere.
Example:

Stanhope Forbes, A Fish Sale on a Cornish Beach

The Hudson River School:

Focused on the study of close observation of nature and a fascination with nature's sublime moods.
Example:

Asher Durand, Landscape with Birches

Plein-Air Movements:

Combining a knowledge of outdoor light with a powerful sense of composition.
Example:

Arthur Streeton, The Purple Noon's Transparent Might

Symbolist Dreams:

Used light and color to create images that stirred the imagination and evoked strange states of mind.

Example:

Adolf Hirschl, Ahasuerus at the End of the World

Magazine Illustration:

Color gradually was included in magazine illustrations and had a strong impact on readers' imaginations.

Walter Everett, The Loneliness of Peter Parrot

Graphic LA - pgs 5-17

Drawing IS symbol making.

What abstract shapes can be used to represent what we see?

An image can be made using only geometric shapes and abstract textures.

Try to reduce everything you see into simple geometric shapes and the fewest values.

The initial tones and colors are crucial to setting the "illusion" of reality.  The tonal/color relations define the "realism."  The shapes can be any graphic representation of the subject as long as the value relationships are correct.

100 Tuesday Tips

Composition 101:

Rule of Thirds - Place focal point in any of the "thirds" spaces.

Thumbnails:

1.  Do them small and quick first.
2.  Pick several you like to do a "clean version."
3.  Pick a few to do variations and see which one you like the most - then do your final.