Black Is (And Isn't) A Color

James Gurney has just published the best explanation of the properties of black that I have ever seen. He has done a four part examination of its use as a pigment, in composition, and properties as a color...or not.  This last installment was my favorite.  As it turns out, it depends on the context of the discussion, and its relation to other colors.  This man is a heck of an educator!

If you don't read his blog yet, I highly recommend it.  GurneyJourney.blogspot.com

Colorblindness

Ever since I was little, I have been fascinated with the idea that we are all alone in our heads, that maybe my truth isn't the same as everyone else's.  (I was a deep little kid.)  Only since I have grown did I realize that this came down to perception, and how it shapes our thoughts.

One of the simplest and easy to simulate examples of this is colorblindness.  In this video, the small image is full-spectrum vision, while the large image is deficient.  A friend of mine was recently diagnosed with both deuteranopia and protanopia, meaning he can see neither red nor green.  Can you imagine seeing in only blue, yellow, and grey?

What's interesting is that we can simulate the deficiency for those of us who can see in full spectrum, but you can't simulate full color vision for the colorblind.  Here's a great website with more information about color blindness: Colblindor

This has me thinking a lot about my own tendency to rely on color in my work.  I really need to push the value factor, if I'm going to make this enjoyable for colorblind people.

Drunk Tank Pink

Is it just our associations with the color pink that causes people to be calm, or something physiological?  I might just have to pick up this guy's book, to learn more.

Here's the article on Big Think.

What Do I Call It?

Lately, most of my energy has been put into fixing up my house.  I mean, dark paneling and hearts-made-of-flowers border are nice and all, but not really my style.  Check out the transformation so far:

Last night, I had some free time and broke out my art brushes.  I paid very close attention to my values this time.  This is something I have struggled with in the past.  The result is a much ore interesting painting than just a likeness.  At least, I think so.

The last step is coming up with a title, which is never much fun for me. I even struggle to title my blog posts.  How do you name things? 

Color Experiments in Screenprinting

I did it.  i finally listed some prints I've been hoarding for a while.  It was a fun series of silkscreen prints I did in my last quarter of college.  My teacher encouraged me to keep printing.  Silkscreen is one of the easiest print techniques to pull off at home, you know.

No two prints are exactly alike.  I printed something like 10 big squares of background color, just a couple of each.  Then I printed a couple of each face color on each color of background.  Each fire and brain color was printed on each colorm ariation after that.  The only color present on each is the black.  Looking at them now, I might have arranged my layers differently.  I probably should have found a way to print the black last, for example.  But hey, that's what these experiments are for!

Check them out on Etsy.  One is framed, and 5 of the remaining 6 are posted here.  

Purple Isn't Real

Ever wonder why purple is so hard to mix?  It might be because it's something our brain invented!

Color Explained

This is a beautifully animated short about the physics of color.  It also happens to explain why Metalheads don't come out in the sun.

Snowblind

Unfortunately, this post has nothing to do with actual snow.  It's 50 and raining here in the Midwest.  Whatever that's about.  Fortunately, this post is a handy painting tip I just learned from my sister.  My sister who hates painting.  Why this didn't come from anyone else I know, I have no idea, but it's good so I'm sharing!

Back in school, I was taught that white paint was pretty much evil.  It killed all the transparency in an oil paint.  Rather than mixing it with other paints to make them lighter, one should lay out all the values on your foundation layer, lay down thin glazes of color letting the lightness come through where necessary, and hitting the super bright spots with white at the very end of the painting.  This is a very traditional way of painting, and somewhat similar to a watercolor approach.  I tend to like my paintings to have more energy, be less polished, show more brush strokes.  Doing both is a pain.

But my lovely sister gave me this clue:  use Zinc white instead of Titanium white.  Think about it.  What's in  natural sunblock?  Titanium oxide.  The stuff blocks light.  But not Zinc!  Mixing with this will lighten your paint, without making it pastel and opaque.  (I can't tell you how many times she said "I can't believe you didn't know that!")  But now I do, and so do you!

There are many other white pigments as well.  Windsor Newton even has this article on the subject:  Choosing the White that's Right in Oils.  I think I'm going to pick up small tubes of various ones and test them.  What have your experiments taught you about white paint?

Tricks for Tonal Value

For any artist, there are things we can handle instinctively and things we have to think about a little more.  For me, including a full and dynamic range of value takes more time and thought.  Thankfully, I had a painting teacher who was full of fun tricks, who gave me this idea. 

I took a plank of luan, and gessoed one side of it.  I marked the center and taped it off.  I then painted one half of it a middle grey (a 1:1 mix of black and white).  After it was dry, I centered the glass with the wood extending past the glass about 1/2 inch on all sides, and caulked it into place.  This is then what I use as a palette.  As I mix paints, the grey helps me judge the value of these colors.  Everything looks dark against white, so the grey lets me see whether it's on the light or dark side of center. 



The same teacher had other interesting ideas, like

• Marking a complete value scale on the palette
• Marking lines or sections by which you could measure paint, to allow for accurate reproduction of mixed colors
• adding a color wheel to the palette

He takes this analytical approach to mixing paints because he's colorblind.  And you know what?  His paintings are incredible, because of the wonderful range of value. The painting below is a model under satin sheets.  Would you look at that light?!

Another one of his tips was that if you use five evenly spaced values, we will interpret a full range.  Just five.  I try to make my big compositional decisions based on those five values. 

 Thanks, John Stewart!  Take a look at his faculty page on the school's site.  

Returning to Paint

So, there was only like... four months between these two photos.  But I'm painting again, and it feels FANTASTIC!  I might be taking a break from sewing.  Or I might just have to finally figure out how to balance them.  Like sew tomorrow night, while this thing is drying.  But painting, it's seriously awesome.  :)

Finished Blouse - Burdastyle Handbook

Here's my finished blouse!

First, I made a muslin, using the seam tracing technique.  I picked it up from Gretchen Hirsch's Sew Retro class, on Craftsy.   I haven't made that dress yet, but I watched the whole class!

I made my alterations to the pattern (changed it to a V-neck).

I used a lot of basting to keep everything in place while I worked.  This was slippery floaty fabric!

I finished the neckline with an applique stitch, and clipped away the rest of the facing.  You could see the whole thing through the sheer fabric, and that was not pretty.  This is!

And lastly, I learned that there is a reason for black interfacing.  I used white initially, and you could see it.  It looked weird (below).  I removed the cuffs, used black interfacing for new ones, and holy moly, does it look better! 

Many many lessons learned working with sheers.  I'd encourage anyone to give it a try!  Just make sure you buy a little extra fabric.  :)

Living Color

Color  is important.  We can see it because at some point, it helped us survive.  It affects our mood, stimulates our mind (and our appetite), warns us of danger, and tells us of health.  Plus, it makes things interesting to look at.   I have come across a lot of opportunities to choose colors recently, ones that I thought would be easier.

For our living room, we have decided, finally to go back to our original thought: grey.  Our first greys were very cold, and blue.  In a low-light, partially below-ground room, this was not nice.  It felt cold, unwelcoming.  That's not how I want my TV room!  I want it to be warm and inviting, where me, Rachel, and our guests can curl up under blankets and enjoy our evening's entertainment.  We tried a whole host of colors (a very yellow-green, orange, red, fuscia, gold), none of which were we willing to live with.  I really wanted to avoid a netural, but the color we picked still manages to be sophisticated, and not feel neutral.  I am pleased to introduce to you our palette:

Color by COLOURlovers

Vector Patterns by COLOURlovers

We fell in love with this bright, vibrant blue some time ago, and decided to use it to tie the whole house together.  We also talked about using flowers as inspiration.  The fuschia/red is from an orchid.  We have a soft spot for those. It's also great for warming up the room.  The blue and white alone would bring the stone back into cool ranges, which we want to avoid.  

Rachel also helped me pick out the accent color for my corset.  

 

The ribbon company calls it "tornado blue."  Weird.  Wrights calls the bias tape "mediterranean blue." Much more logical.  It looks very peacock blue/green, to me.  Does this call for peacock embroidered embellishments on my corset?  Absolutely!

Love Affair with Sap Green

Sap Green.  Have you ever seen a more perfect color?  It occurs in nature, unlike the weird semi-opaque that viridian tends to be.  It blends much more easily with the rest of your oils because it's nice and transparent.  When painting anything representational, you're a lot more likely to need this color than any other green.  I love mixing my colors, but this is nearly impossible to achieve with other greens. If you don't have this in your palette, put it there.  ASAP.

Image from FineArtAmerica.com

Night Light - The Trick

Not too long ago, I told you that I was very excited about the way painting digitally allows you to manipulate colors consistently, and therefore keep continuity and make your work believable.  I had to take an existing character, and make it look like she's sitting in the dark, illuminated by her laptop only.

Here's a little dose of color theory: the darker it is, the cooler everything looks, and the less contrast it has.

Whenever I have to do a series of images in photoshop, I create a palette layer, and include all the colors I use.  This means everything can have perfect continuity, within a single image, and from one frame to the next in sequential art.  To make a night scene as believable as possible, you must do the same thing to each color.  This is incredibly easy on the computer.
With your palette on its own layer, do a color overlay.  Use a very cool, almost grey blue.
Shoot for something like this:   Make adjustments as necessary, but this will make for a good, dramatic difference.

Then, when you pick up the colors from your palette, it will find the adjusted colors.  Paint away, and it will automatically look like cool, evening light!  Here's the difference:

Illustrated Rachel - Daytime

Illustrated Rachel - Illuminated by Computer

I did cheat a little when it came to the hair color.  The highlights were much lighter than I thought they should be, for only having light on a little bit of her hair.  This is where one must use a discerning eye and take liberties!  

Night Light

When it comes to how I choose to do things, I'm often a traditionalist.  Give me home made ice cream and clothes, paper literature, and real, messy, paint!  So when I say this, please understand how much it means:

I found a new appreciation for painting digitally. 

I had to take illustrated Rachel, and paint her as if she was in a dark room, with only the light of the laptop illuminating her.  This is not something I'd ever attempted before, but I know the way it should work.  I gave it a whirl, and what can I say, but success!  It was a really fun and interesting challenge, and will really test your knowledge of the way light works, and your understanding of human anatomy!

I can't wait to show off this drawing!

Color, Vision, and Art

Remember my post on color theory?  Well this site is a very in depth look at vision, color theory and how it all works within art.  Fascinating, if you ask me!

Also,  I think this is going to be my next knitting endeavor:



Delightful, no? And it seems very easy!

Zig Zag Memories

Something about winter always has me running for the yarn crafts.  I made two Koolhaas hats, with much success!  These are a great stash-busting hat, but I indulged a bit on some of the yarn.  Silk and bamboo blend? Yes please!  I was showing off the very first of these hats to a friend of mine, who requested I make him a blanket.  He said to make it hideous, with orange and yellow.  Later, he said that he had particular memories he was trying to recall.  So, I added brown (also at his request) and a touch of some nice olive green.  I'll be working it into this pattern.  Gotta love the free ones, right?  This is what popped into my head immediately when he told me what he wanted.  I always get extra excited to make stuff for other people.  This one will evoke good memories as well.  You can't beat giving the warm and fuzzy feeling to someone by doing something you love.  

Color of the Day

It wasn't planned, but today's color is definitely blue.  Specifically, light cerulean blue.  Don't think this is a bad thing.  This shade of blue is perhaps the most useful color there is.




Just look at it!  It's cool, but not too cool.  The perfect color for reflective light in any piece of artwork.  Seriously.  Regardless of what you're drawing, it works.  Today, I'm using it to mark on black velvet for embroidery.  Because it's blue and not white, it is visible, but will not draw extra attention if I can't remove it all from the finished piece.

Also, totally by coincidence, I put on a light blue shirt.  Realizing the theme, I went ahead and wore the fragrance Light Blue, by D&G.  It seems important for the day.  Guess we'll see.

Color Theory: 101

Some days just don't make anything easy for you. Today is one of those days. I spent last night shrinking the pattern for the messenger bag so I could make a purse sized one today. It would have been fine, except I ran out of thread, and started feeling pressed for time. Then I started rushing and well.... several ripped seams and a huge pile of thread on the floor later, I decided to give it a rest.

I ran a few errands to help clear my head. I checked my internet things to do the same, and here I am. I think it's time for a quick lesson in color theory.

If you stop and think about it, color means a lot in our world. It starts at birth: pink is for girls, blue is for boys. Red stands for passion, and for romance, and for stop. Blue skies are good, but feeling blue is bad. Part of that is because of observable phenomena, like blushing when you see your true love. But the power of color over us has to do with the way we are built to survive. The good things in life like healthy plants, fruit, birds (another source of food) are often brightly colored. Rocks, soil, and storm clouds are more dull or muted colors.  True, there are many exceptions to these rules, but it is not hard to believe that seeing in color helped us survive.  Thus color carries a great weight with us today.

But how can a person manipulate it to get a desired effect?  Perhaps the most important rule is that complementary colors pop.  Take a look at this color wheel.



In the center are the three primary colors.  You mix these to get all the others.  Just outside that are the secondary colors - made from mixing two of the primaries.  Here, you get a basic sense of the spectrum.  Analogous colors are found next to each other on the color wheel.  Red and orange are analogous, for instance.  Complementary colors are across from each other on the wheel.  These, when placed side by side, can do some really interesting things.  Generally speaking, they are opposites, they create a lot of activity inside the cells of our eyes, and always work well together.  Now, consider this:  If you put two complementary colors which are the same value (equally light or dark), they scintillate.  Generally speaking, it works best with really bright or saturated colors, and it kind of hurts.  Observe: 

Ok, sorry I had to do that to you.  But you see how it kind of bugs you?  That's great, if that's what you're going for.  If not, all you have to do is make one color dark, and the other light, and that annoying buzz behind your eyes goes away.

Another fun thing that happens is called simultaneous contrast.  This means if you put one color, say blue-grey, next to red, and next to yellow, it will look different.  In the following example, the central rectangles are the same color in each column, believe it or not.  Do you see how some of the rectangles appear darker or a slightly different color than their partner?    Think of what you could do knowing this trick!  I use it in my makeup.  I have a touch of green in my eyes, so I wear purple or pink eye makeup.  These are close to red, which is green's complement.  So pick the color you want to bring out.  Move across the color wheel, and you can use that color, or its analogous colors to activate the color of your choosing. 

If you want to mute a color, you mix it with its complement.  Say I have a bright green paint I'd like to tone down.  Add just a touch of red, and you'll make olive.  Be careful with this last bit though.  You'll make many a puddle of grey muck mastering this skill.  Keep in mind that brown is a dark orange or sometimes yellow.  Blue is very pretty with brown!  Shadows are always a muted version of the color you see.  So if you add blue to a brown color, you'll get beautiful shadows.  It was a lesson my art teacher taught me in 7th grade, and I use it to this day! 

Alright class, any questions?
I didn't think so.  You're all so very bright.
A+ for everyone!

Spam, Spam, Spam, Science, and Spam

I work at a publishing company.
Sometimes I have to sort and route emails. Like I am today.
Mostly, it's SPAM.
Sometimes we get things from customers telling us that our books are wrong.
I have genuine concern for people who know that "strepsirhines" is the updated term for "prosimian," and have the time to tell us that our book is outdated. I mean, it will be fixed upon the next publication. They have people who do this. Only scientists need to know this anyway, right? Maybe they are studying to be scientists, in which case that makes more sense. Still, nobody likes a know-it all.

Once, we had an email from someone who was seriously concerned about a "pretty big mistake" in an art book, regarding the primary colors of light.
Primary colors of pigment: red, blue, yellow.
Primary colors of light: red, blue, green. TRUE.

Oh well.
At least they're trying to spread knowledge, and make sure it's correct! Props to you, science man. At least you didn't send me spam.