Musician’s party

August 29, 2009August 29, 2009 | maggiebird

Today we’re going to a musician’s party, and I thought this drawing was a nice illustration of that most enjoyable diversion.

The drawing is homework I never finished this spring at the Atelier. Maestro Rob wants me to finish it and submit it to a student show he’s having. There’s no guarantee that it will get accepted, but them’s the breaks. And it’s good to have a deadline that will make me finish it. After I finish posting, I’ll get to work on it.

The assignment was to take a master drawing, copy it, and put yourself in it. Vermeer painted the girl with the guitar. And there I am in the background. It’s been challenging to figure out the same lighting, where I’d sit in the composition, and the hairstyle and dress of the time.

All of this and think of color temperature too! The light source is cool, so that means:

Highlights : Warm
Stronglights : Cool
Midtones : Warm
Shadow edge : Cool
Shadow : Warm

This seems simple in theory. But in practice, I have to really think hard and make real choices (as opposed to just going with intuition). And all this with a limited palette of colors. It’s a good exercise, and I’m learning a lot.

Quick color temperature

July 3, 2009July 4, 2009 | maggiebird

This year at the atelier I learned modeling using color temperature—we used a limited palette of 4 earth-toned pastel pencils, charcoal and white chalk, and toned paper to create form and shadow.

This method is about intellectualizing your drawing. It’s about making a conscious plan rather than just grabbing a color and hoping it will work. We drew value scales in color to denote the color temperature of highlight, strong light, midtones and shadows, paying close attention to warm and cool color temperature and where it was placed in the scale. This is agony for me. I don’t do it well. Scales suck.

Since I am also a musician, I know the value of scales. I think of them as athletic training, like the drills that prepare the football player for that winning 100-yard dash. Playing scales prepare the musician for a blindingly brilliant set. Playing the actual notes become muscle memory, the body goes on automatic pilot and the musician’s intuitive brain is free to choose the music she hears in her head.

I figure it must be the same for the style of painting I’m yearning to do. Once I’ve internalized color temperature theory, I’ll be more able to make intuitive choices that are based on logic. That’s when I think true creativity can emerge.

So I drew value scales religiously for each of my drawings this year. They helped. It’s surprising how far astray you can go from your original values over the course of a long pose. I leaned heavily on those value scales to re-orient myself and to overcome frustration. I know I frequently muttered things like, “strong light is cool. Cool, dammit!”

But on the last day of class this year I decided to whip out a drawing using the color temperature principles without agonizing over a value scale. The drawings at the top of the post were of ten minute poses each on toned paper. I did have to write the color temperatures down so I could remember which shadow was cool, which highlight was warm, but I didn’t need to draw a value scale. I was pleased that the concept is beginning to integrate into the way I choose color.

Vermeer with a limited color palette

May 14, 2009 | maggiebird

VermeerCopyWarm — Vermeer copy Charcoal and pastel chalk on toned paper

This is the results of the first 5 hours into my homework (copy a part of an old master, once as if under warm light and once as if under cool light) for the Atelier. Vermeer’s guitar player looks spooky with no eyes, but they’ll go in last, to keep me from focusing on them and nothing else. Her nose is not long enough and her mouth is too high; I’ll fix that later as well.

Maestro Rob has allowed us to use a limited color palette—charcoal, white chalk, gray chalk, and 5 earth-toned chalks. We’re working with color temperature and value to build form. At left you can see my value chart. This drawing is imagined to be under warm light, which, according to the way David and Rob teach color temperature theory, makes cool highlights and shadow, alternating cool and warm in all the steps in between.

This drawing will have to go on the back burner for now, as I still have to attempt the other part of the assignment in two evenings, that of the same drawing as if under cool light. That will mean warm highlights, warm shadows.

It’s a lot of work, to be sure, learning to draw and see effectively, but it’s been worth it. 3 years ago I couldn’t even imagine doing this kind of work. I still have trouble imagining that I can do it, and still am never satisfied.