I teach art project at school along with my math classes. This week we are looking at the five zones of light, and seeing them to create the illusion of rounded 3-D objects on the two-dimensional picture space. Each student created a contour drawing of the subject, numbered the spaces according to a 5-value scale, then reproduced the drawing, filling in the spaces as assigned with a monochromatic rendering according to the observed values. It's our first foray into painting, so some students struggled with the mechanics of using the brush. But, a number of students produced great results, and were pleased to see the 3-dimensionality of the objects begin to reveal itself.
This is my quick take on the idea so they could see their expected result.
This week, I set up a lesson using a painting by terrific artist, Carol Marine (See her work at the link here) Carol's work is strong and very accessible to my middle-school students. I chose this painting by Carol for its color scheme, whimsy, and cropped subject matter. The students needed to make a thumbnail sketch, then paint it in watercolor, using no black nor brown. On a couple of the paint sets, I had to use "caution tape" to cover the black and brown just in case they "forgot." We talked about black, brown, tan, gray, etc, and how they need to make those tones using complements after naming the black, brown, tan, gray, etc, by using one of the primary or secondary colors as adjective. "Green gray", "orange brown", "reddish tan". They got the hang of it. We'll finish this week.
Thanks for looking!
My painting class arrived today to a table filled with three collections of objects and matching cloths - red group, blue group, yellow group. I asked the students to choose only objects from one collection so that they could explore warm and cool mixtures in the same color family. (Interestingly, there were red and blue still life arrangements, but no one chose the yellow.)
Then we reviewed the hierarchies I recommend they establish when beginning each painting. Look for, and establish the following notes:
Darkest/lightest
Warmest/coolest
Hardest/softest edge
Saturated/neutralized color.
By establishing the range for each of the hierarchies, you are setting the boundaries for the painting. If considered thoughtfully, no other passage in the painting should be outside the established boundaries.
"Blue on Blue" is my demo of today's lesson. I began by putting notes of color for each of the eight hiercarchical boundaries.
Every artist establishes their own repertoire of methods to draw on when beginning a painting. This is a good way to start a painting, and good discipline for painting in an intentional, thoughtful way. Each and every stroke is measured against the initial notes. Intentionality doesn't suppress energy, rhythm, spontenaity, exuberance. In fact, intentionality frees you.. it produces results, and avoids a lot of fixing, adjusting, reworking, and overworking. We had great results today. As always, my students are such good thinkers, and hard workers. Good day!
