Values in two colors

Sometimes you just want to play around, learn something new, or try out a new technique.    Both of these paintings were done for those reasons.  

They are also an expansion on the values discussion we have been having for the last few week.  Although these are portraits of five people (and yes if you know them you would recognized them), they don't have ultramarine blue hair or faces.  I do have to admit that the hair color in the portrait of the three individuals while not exact is in family.

Both of these paintings were  done in watercolors using a lot of water to get the background puddles and drips.  It was fun to play in the puddles!

The first portrait is of a friend's children (if you recognize them no names please).  The second  portrait is of my sister, niece, and nephew.  One of the dangers of being a family member or friend of an artist is you might just become part of an experiment!

Military Tattoo

I am very fortunate to live in a country that is a democracy with free speech and the associated obligations that come along with that.  It has been a honor to send care packages to the people who are serving in our military.   In the past I have been able to do this because I knew a son or brother of someone serving.  Without having that personal connection, I had to do a little searching to make that connection.  There are many organizations out there that connection with our military personnel- this is one that I have chosen to work with 

Adopt-a-Soldier

Regardless of politics (and I really don't want there to be a discussion of politics on this blog), I hope that you will join me in a finding some small (or big) way to support our troops.

Thanks for listening...

Now to the painting part...

This was the first time I included a large number of people (in kilts no less) in a painting.  Figuring out how to do it was one of those easier said than done things.  However, once I actually started thinking the right way- just think big shapes not individual people- it became much simpler.  For example I didn't paint the individual kilts, I painted the big mass of kilts from the same regiment.

It was also interesting to figure out how to push the values to read night even with the dramatic lighting of the castle.  Back to that values thing again.

If you have the opportunity to visit Edinburgh, I would highly recommend it.  The Military Tattoo happens during the summer festival - August time frame.  The castle is lit up very dramatically, the bands wonderful and just a great experience.  There is even a free preview concert in the park at the base of the castle in the afternoons.

Values to Color

Last week I wrote about the value of values.  Today I want to show you some ways that I use value sketches to create better paintings.  I'm trying to do this more regularly as I think the resulting paintings are much more successful.  I have some paintings that have fallen a part about mid-way through and I couldn't pull them off. In those cases if I had done the value study, I would have figured out the problem and headed in a better direction.

The small value study was done prior to the actual painting.  I worked out the composition and values first before starting on the painting.  If you look at the value study you will see some fairly prominent dots of color and then if you look closer still you will see some dots of color that fade into the  original value study.  The dots that fade into the value painting are the same value as the grey in the value study- that means I nailed the value.  So colors have values too.

Here is the resulting painting based on this value study.

Then let's turn it back into values and see how I did.

I increased the amount of dark trees, hedges, and grass, bumped up the gravel path, and changed the value of the sky.  (I actually put the sky in based on the value study scraped part of it off and put it in a little darker with some different colors,)

This painting was started  as part of a class I took from Sara Beth Fair on Cityscapes.  I've worked on it for a few hours after class and there is still some work to do  You can see it in the color version of the painting but it really shows up in the black and white version- the very top of the building on the right looks like its about to fall over.  So some more work to do on this one.

Sara Beth's work is based on the old Russian master's techniques.  Her website is www.sarabethfair.com  Sara Beth is one of small group of us who get together to draw from life (people or still lifes).

Value of values

When I first started looking at art I thought the color was the most important thing to draw someone into a painting.  Then probably followed by subject, composition and that was probably it.  For drawing I just thought of shading as the equivalent of color.

Then I started studying art and discovered I had it all wrong.  The most important thing is value.  Value is the how dark something is.  If I take a picture of a painting and turn into to a gray scale on the computer, I can see the values without getting confused by color differences.  That is something artists actually do if they think there is something not quite right about a painting or if they are doing prepartory work prior to starting a painting. 

I can use any color to represent something as long as I get the values right.  For example, this window scene is done in one color, Ultramarine Blue, but you see the scene based on the values.

More on the values and color connection next week.