Sunday 31 October 2010




Course work: I started Stage One of Project Two by again reviewing the work to date. Stage Two of Project Two was initiated by deciding to work on 45.7 x 61 cm paper. I decided to rearrange the folds in my still-life drapery and to change to a horizontal format with somewhat altered lighting. Work on Stage Three commenced when I mixed and applied the first coat of a color approximating the average background color.



Reading and theoretical studies:



Continuing the theoretical work on P. 93 of the text, I did a small colored pencil sketch (p. 47 in sketchbook) of Albert Bierstadt’s Sunset. Bierstadt (and the others in the Hudson River School) typically used heightened color and strong contrasts to create the effect that they desired.

Victoria Finlay Color

Ballantine Books, New York, 2002

Pp. 108-134



E.H. Gombrich, The Story of Art

Phaidon Press Limited, Oxford 1978

Pp. 167-201



Sketchbook work: One of the cats, heavily asleep.

Weekly reflections on learning experience: My work this week has been compromised by several days of dangerously unstable weather, and by the myriad of things one must do to prepare for an extended trip (everything from moving hay to patching leaks in the tack shed). I finally completed Project One to my reasonable satisfaction. Sketchbook work has been fair. Reading has not been quite as good as last week, but fell within acceptable limits.



Time today: Two hours 13 minutes (18h27m)

Saturday 30 October 2010




Reading and theoretical studies:



Norbert Wolf Salvador Dali

Parragon, New York, 2008

Pp. 154-187



Sketchbook work: A sketch of an old clay lamp, said to be authentic, though I have my doubts.

Time today: 39 minutes

Friday 29 October 2010




Course work: Made a few more color adjustments. Spent more time backing off and looking for adjustments to make than I did painting. At this point, I think it is time to move on; I may have overdone these two stages. It would be very helpful to the student if OCA included in the text some examples for guidance.

Reading and theoretical studies:



Victoria Finlay Color

Ballantine Books, New York, 2002

Pp. 77-107



Sketchbook work: A view down my gravel driveway.

Time today: One hour nine minutes (15h35m)

Thursday 28 October 2010




Course work: Commenced making the additional color corrections required in Stage Three of Project One. It seems likely that I encroached on Stage Three while working on Stage Two. Much of today’s effort was on the surprisingly elusive colors of the pear. I also found a few more minor errors in construction, though I left these uncorrected.





Reading and theoretical studies:



Norbert Wolf Salvador Dali

Parragon, New York, 2008

Pp. 96-153



Sketchbook work: Two sketches of the seedpods of a trumpet vine.

Time today: One hour 46 minutes

Wednesday 27 October 2010




Course work: A quick, smaller version of Stage Two of Project One, on 23 x30 cm paper, imagining a blue background instead of a green one, including much less detail, and making some changes in the original colors. To me, this seems more like a color study than does the larger piece…but, who knows? Getting the colors of the pear correct proved a problem in both studies, and some further work is indicated. The larger study has more depth than the smaller, for two reasons: in the larger study I suggested the horizontal surface with lighter paint, and I developed the folds and shadows more fully. After looking at both studies, I am convinced that my original green drapery color is satisfactory, although I may rearrange the folds before progressing to Project Two. I think that it is now time to proceed to Stage Three of Project One.

Reading and theoretical studies:



Victoria Finlay Color

Ballantine Books, New York, 2002

Pp. 39-77



Sketchbook work: A funnel cloud which appeared to the southeast. This frightening phenomenon was sketched from memory, as the cloud was quickly obscured by torrential rain that reduced visibility to less than 150 meters.

Time today: One hour 32 minutes

Tuesday 26 October 2010





Course work: Put a few more small areas of paint on the color study for Stage Two of Project One. I don’t think that I should take this much further and still consider it a color study. I think that I made an error by making it about the same size as the planned actual painting. I am beginning to wonder if I made a bad color choice for my drapery.

Reading and theoretical studies:



E. H. Gombrich Art and Illusion (11th Printing)

Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, USA, 1969

Pp. 146-202



Sketchbook work: On a day of very disturbed weather, with cumulus, cumulonimbus, altocumulus, stratus, altostratus, and cirrus clouds simultaneously visible, I did four quick half-page sky sketches, in two drawing most of the cloud-forms in, and in two erasing most out. None of the four is highly satisfactory, but they do give the impression of the extremely unstable weather.

Time today: 1 hour 9minutes

Monday 25 October 2010





Reading and theoretical studies:



Victoria Finlay Color

Ballantine Books, New York, 2002

Pp. 1-39



Time today: 36 minutes

Sunday 24 October 2010




Course work: Further work on Stage Two of Project One, adding some small patches of color.



Reading and theoretical studies: Started collecting images for the theoretical studies project at the bottom of page 93 in the text. Here again, the criteria seem fairly subjective, but I shall try to be as objective as I can. The first small color study will illustrate how color can be used as a significant element in the composition without playing a part in realistic description; this is based on Ivor Hitchens’ Red Centre. Colored pencil was used for most of the study, with one small dab of white acrylic.

The Red Centre” of the title appears to be a saturated slightly warm red, surrounded by other colors that are primarily either tints or are partially neutralized. With the patch of bright red, the picture is arresting; without the red centre, it is uninteresting.





Sketchbook work: A sketch of my somewhat battered travel hat, brought out and brushed off in preparation for our upcoming trip.

Weekly reflections on learning experience: I am glad to be away from painting squares, despite the knowledge I gained by so doing. Work on the color pattern is both more interesting and more confusing, as I have little idea of just when to call this stage complete; it is, I suppose, intended as preliminary work for the next project, but where is the end point? If it is just to try out the major colors used, then I am already finished (and have been since Thursday). I think I’ll spend another day or two at it, still working on applying color in ever-smaller patches without any real effort at creating a detailed outline.



Time today: Two hours 18 minutes

Saturday 23 October 2010




Course work: Stage two of Project One continues, with a few more minor contour corrections, and the beginning of application of a few intermediate colors and tones.



Reading and theoretical studies:



Norbert Wolf Salvador Dali

Parragon, New York, 2008

Pp. 8-93





E.H. Gombrich, The Story of Art

Phaidon Press Limited, Oxford 1978

Pp. 155-166



Sketchbook work: A sketch of the skull of a female white-tailed deer, in my pocket sketchbook.

Time today: 2 hours 16 minutes (7 hours 2 minutes)

Friday 22 October 2010







Course work: Continuing work on Project One: A Color Study, Stage Two, I corrected a few erroneous shapes, and overpainted some colors that were a bit thin, still using a large brush and not being very precise in my paint application, and limiting the work generally to three tones.

Reading and theoretical studies:



E. H. Gombrich Art and Illusion (11th Printing)

Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, USA, 1969

Pp. 116-145



Sketchbook work: A few hasty charcoal sketches as the horses grazed near the house. I’ve never done one of these that I liked, but I keep trying.

Time today: 1 hour 14 minutes

Thursday 21 October 2010




Course work: Made some very minor adjustments in the setup to improve the light-shadow relationship. Decided to work on 45.7 x 61 cm paper, with the long axis vertical. At this point, I was ready to proceed to the next stage (Project One: A Color Study, Stage Two). I sketched in the general outlines of the still life using very diluted black acrylic, making a few errors in construction, but having enough correct lines to use as a basis for departure. Laid in colors approximating local color, using a broad brush; this at least helped to reveal the remainder of my drawing errors. Made some color notes in my sketchbook as I worked, to assist in reproducing the colors used.





Reading and theoretical studies:



E.H. Gombrich, The Story of Art

Phaidon Press Limited, Oxford 1978

Pp. 125-154



Went online to review the works of Hitchens and Auerbach, as recommended by the text. I understand that my role as a student is to study the works of others and learn from them, but I must confess that the twenty or so works that I studied online or downloaded and have now reviewed several times leaves me convinced that I would not enjoy being a student of theirs. Perhaps it is my age; perhaps it is my inadequate background in art; perhaps my sample was inadequate; perhaps I’m just not competent to appreciate such work; nevertheless, I saw little to which I would give wall-space.



Sketchbook work: Another covert restaurant scribble in my pocket sketchbook; at least I represented the general attitudes of the diners.

Time today: Two hours 7 minutes

Wednesday 20 October 2010




Course work: Project 5, Stage 3. Laid out all my Assignment One work for review…see photo p. 53. (Tiles in floor are 30.5 cm.)

Colors are reasonably flat; some transparent colors are less than perfect in uniformity. There is some minor imprecision in paint application: this is due in part to the multiple applications required, and to a lesser extent to occasional difficulty with a mild senile tremor. My color mixing has improved, and my handling of acrylic paint has improved a little. I anticipate some continuing experimentation with color-mixing, primarily in my sketchbook.











At this point, I think that I have completed the Assignment One work. I am sure that if I repeated it from the start, I could improve it somewhat.



Reading and theoretical studies:



Johannes Itten The Elements of Color


John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, 1961

Pp. 72-95

(In my opinion, The Elements of Color is overrated. The language is frequently ponderous, and the translation is suboptimal. There is useful information, although it is often hard to locate or comprehend in the barely-penetrable jungle of tedious Teutonic verbosity. The irrelevant mysticism (“…the essential factor is the ‘aura’ of the person.”) and a significant number of comments that are not only absurd, but which seem tainted with Nazism (“Light blond types with blue eyes and pink skin incline toward very pure colors… A very different type is represented by people with black hair, dark skin, and dark eyes, for whom black plays an important part in the harmony.”) distract the reader and detract from the value of the book. The association of colors with specific geometric shapes is just silly, and one can easily find any number of other equally absurd statements. Some figures are presented out of logical order…the first cited in the text is No. 58. While The Elements of Color may have some historical interest, it would seem to have limited value to the contemporary student, who can easily find more readable and better illustrated color theory texts which lack the objectionable features of this volume.)



Time today: 58 minutes



Total time for Assignment One: 89 hours 13 minutes

PAINTING ONE: STARTING TO PAINT

Assignment Two

3: Using Colour to Describe Objects

Wednesday 20 October 2010




Course work: (Project One: A Color Study, Stage One) Set up the still life again, this time on top of a filing cabinet, to bring it up closer to eye level when I am standing at the easel. I removed the light bulb, since it was generally similar in shape to the wooden pear, and because it added no color to an already low-color setup, and added a colored-glass bottle. I then lit the setup fairly strongly from the left, which produces interesting cast shadows and projects and reflects the bottle color. The colors are still analogous (red-orange-yellow) with the background a slightly neutralized green as a complement. To get a full range of color, I would have had to start over from scratch, and this does not seem to be the intent of the project.



Reading and theoretical studies:



These works by Bratby, Derain, Auerbach, Hitchens and Matisse seem to use color primarily as a means of expression, with elements of construction and impression in some:


(Images omitted from blog because of copyright concerns)




These works by DeChirico, Braque, Lempicka, and Picasso seem to use color primarily as a means of construction, with secondary elements of expression:




(Images omitted from blog because of copyright concerns)















These paintings by Hopper, Bierstadt, Monet, and Picasso seem to use color primarily to represent impression:



(Images omitted from blog because of copyright concerns)












I am certain that other observers would classify these differently, especially since two or all three components work together in many paintings. Itten does not provide the reproducible criteria for the categories that one would expect: in the absence of such clearly defined criteria, it is a matter for each individual observer to decide what impression, expression, and construction mean, and which is the dominant component in any given painting.



Peggy Hadden The Artist’s Quest for Inspiration

Allworth Press, New York, 1999

Pp. 39-78



E. H. Gombrich Art and Illusion (11th Printing)

Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, USA, 1969

Pp. 93-115







Sketchbook work: A scribble-sketch of my still-life setup in progress, thinking about viewpoint and relationship of objects.

Time today: Two hours 25 minutes

Wednesday 20 October 2010





Course work: Project 5, Stage 3. Laid out all my Assignment One work for review…see photo p. 53. (Tiles in floor are 30.5 cm.)



Colors are reasonably flat; some transparent colors are less than perfect in uniformity. There is some minor imprecision in paint application: this is due in part to the multiple applications required, and to a lesser extent to occasional difficulty with a mild senile tremor. My color mixing has improved, and my handling of acrylic paint has improved a little. I anticipate some continuing experimentation with color-mixing, primarily in my sketchbook.

At this point, I think that I have completed the Assignment One work. I am sure that if I repeated it from the start, I could improve it somewhat.



Reading and theoretical studies:



Johannes Itten The Elements of Color

John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, 1961

Pp. 72-95

(In my opinion, The Elements of Color is overrated. The language is frequently ponderous, and the translation is suboptimal. There is useful information, although it is often hard to locate or comprehend in the barely-penetrable jungle of tedious Teutonic verbosity. The irrelevant mysticism (“…the essential factor is the ‘aura’ of the person.”) and a significant number of comments that are not only absurd, but which seem tainted with Nazism (“Light blond types with blue eyes and pink skin incline toward very pure colors… A very different type is represented by people with black hair, dark skin, and dark eyes, for whom black plays an important part in the harmony.”) distract the reader and detract from the value of the book. The association of colors with specific geometric shapes is just silly, and one can easily find any number of other equally absurd statements. Some figures are presented out of logical order…the first cited in the text is No. 58. While The Elements of Color may have some historical interest, it would seem to have limited value to the contemporary student, who can easily find more readable and better illustrated color theory texts which lack the objectionable features of this volume.)



Time today: 58 minutes



Total time for Assignment One: 89 hours 13 minutes

Tuesday 19 October 2010




Course work: Taking a sheet of grey paper, I painted a red cross on it, stared at the center for a timed 30 seconds, and, as expected, saw an evanescent light green cross when I diverted my gaze downward. Out of curiosity, I made further experiments with a yellow, a blue, and a grey cross on the grey paper, and with a red and a grey cross on white paper. The yellow cross produced a convincing violet…the strongest effect of the series. The blue cross produced a barely discernable dirty yellowish image. The grey cross on grey paper produced an image slightly lighter than the grey paper. The grey cross on white paper produced an afterimage lighter than the white paper (which certainly provides food for thought) and the red cross on white paper a stronger green image than was noted with the red cross on grey paper. Here is a composite image of my experimental setups:

Reading and theoretical studies:



E.H. Gombrich, The Story of Art

Phaidon Press Limited, Oxford 1978

Pp. 94-124



Johannes Itten The Elements of Color

John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, 1961

Pp. 49-71





Sketchbook work:



Another color circle, this one using Grumbacher Red, cadmium yellow medium, and cobalt blue as the primary colors. A strong orange, and a usable, but somewhat neutralized, violet and green result from two-primary mixtures. Mixtures of each primary with its mixed complement produce useful brownish neutrals. A mixture of all three primary colors produces a strong near-black brown.



These three colors plus white would allow one to do reasonably satisfactory work, though the vermillion-arylide yellow-cobalt blue triad remains the most successful of those I have tested to date.

A red-chalk sketch of the cone of a white pine, a fairly uncommon tree in this area.

Time today: Two hours 25 minutes

Monday 18 October 2010





Course work: Worked on Project Five, Stage One, Optical Mixing. Some preliminary experimentation showed that small, fairly uniform dots could best be produced by stamping with a small, sharp piece of wood. A circle with ~1mm dots of cadmium yellow light and cerulean blue, straight from the tube, and a second with larger dots of the same colors, these made with a brush, were evaluated: I could not convince myself that I could see them as green at any distance, as the blue dots seemed to overpower the yellow ones. I then lightened the blue considerably with white, and repeated the two small circles, with slightly more convincing results. I then did a roughly square set of ~2mm dots, with an overall size of ~5cm; with this I could imagine that I could see a little green: the effect seemed stronger in indirect daylight than in incandescent light.





I then carried out a similar series using cadmium yellow light and cadmium red light: I was able to convince myself that I could see orange in each of the five areas. To assess whether the white background could make a significant difference, I painted a small solid yellow square and applied dots of cadmium red light to it: the effect was somewhat more convincing, but is outside the range of the project.



I was not fully satisfied with the results of the project so far, and set out to find a way to make small uniform easily-controllable dots. Colored markers proved effective: four small circles done with yellow and blue, yellow and red, red and blue, and red and green, yielded when viewed from a distance the impressions of green, orange, purple, and a reddish-grey neutral.



With this knowledge in hand, I returned to acrylics, and, making smaller and more closely-set dots, managed to produce a fair violet, a weak orange, a rather weak green, and by using red, yellow, and blue, a somewhat yellowish neutral.

My conclusions: (1) To provide effective optical mixing, dots must be small, uniform, and fairly evenly spaced (uneven spacing results in a tint shift). (2)Viewing distance is important: smaller dots mix optically at a shorter distance than do larger dots. (3) Selecting the proper amount of each color to use to achieve a desired effect is difficult. (4) I am unlikely to become a pointillist.





Reading and theoretical studies:



Johannes Itten The Elements of Color

John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, 1961

Pp. 24-48



E. H. Gombrich Art and Illusion (11th Printing)

Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, USA, 1969

Pp. 63-90



Sketchbook work: A sketch of a closed hand.

Time today: Two hours 14 minutes (85h50m)

Sunday 17 October 2010




Course work: Continued work on Project Four, today working in matching tones of dis-similar colors. This is a slow process, as it is difficult to accurately estimate the amount of darkening that will occur with drying. Repeated slight corrections are required, and one must squint until it is painful. In a row of grey squares, one light, one medium, and one dark, I used a cadmium yellow very slightly neutralized with a speck of a mixture of ultramarine blue and cadmium red, a cadmium red with a little white, and an ultramarine blue with a somewhat greater amount of white. The second row consists of a cadmium red square, a cerulean blue square, and a cadmium lemon square. For the first, I prepared a complement of a slightly bluish green with cerulean blue and cadmium lemon yellow; I had to add some white to this to approximately match the tone with the red background. For the cerulean blue square, I mixed an orange with cadmium red and cadmium yellow; in order to match tones with the blue, the orange had to be neutralized to brown with ultramarine blue. To match tones with the lemon yellow background, I prepared a violet with alizarin crimson and ultramarine blue; this required addition of a great deal of white before a tonal match was obtained. Every small square was repainted at least four times before a tonal match was obtained, making this quite an onerous exercise. I think that I have now met the objectives of Project Four.

Reading and theoretical studies:



Hajo Dütchling Cézanne

Taschen, Köln, 2003

Pp. 193-216

(A generally well-written and balanced account of the artist’s life and work, with only occasional digressions into the author’s personal opinions concerning the artist’s thought processes, and fewer flights of descriptive fancy than one often sees in such books. Most, but not all, of the works discussed are illustrated. Well worth adding to a basic collection.)



Johannes Itten The Elements of Color

John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, 1961

Pp. 4-24



Sketchbook work: A not-entirely-successful attempt at a brush sketch of some cirrus clouds. In trying to avoid the error of making the sky too blue, I failed to make it blue enough; it could also have been more smoothly painted.

Weekly reflections on learning experience: After ten days of painting squares, I am ready to go on to something else. The entire series of color-theory projects has shown me that my knowledge of color-mixing and tone is less complete than I had thought, and that there is still a great deal of room for further work on my part. My reading has gone well this week; my sketchbook work has been about average.



Time today: Two hours 56 minutes

Saturday 16 October 2010




Reading and theoretical studies:



E.H. Gombrich, The Story of Art

Phaidon Press Limited, Oxford 1978

Pp. 80-93



Peggy Hadden The Artist’s Quest for Inspiration

Allworth Press, New York, 1999

Pp. xv-xvi, 3-38



Time today: 39 minutes

Friday 15 October 2010




Course work: Did some final work on the first sheet of Project Four, and started painted the squares for the second sheet, on which I shall try to match the tones in the inner and outer squares.

Observations made from studying the first sheet, using indirect daylight as my light source:

(1) The mid-grey appears darker on the yellow than on the dark grey; on cadmium red it appears slightly darker than on dark grey.

(2) The yellow appears about equal on dark grey, mid-grey, and cadmium red.

(3) Cadmium red appears lighter on dark grey than on mid-grey, and darker on yellow than on mid-grey.

(4) Blue appears darkest on dark grey, but darker on light grey than on mid-grey.

(5) In the six squares painted by mixing colors to approximate primary colors, then painting the complement in the small square, red appears a bit darker on yellow than on blue, blue a bit darker on yellow than on red, and yellow about equal on red and blue.

(6) In the six squares painted by mixing secondary colors from the mixed primaries, green appears brighter on violet than on red, violet more intense on orange than on green, and orange brighter on violet than on green.

(7) Re advancing and receding colors: in general, lighter colors on dark backgrounds tend to advance, darker colors on light backgrounds appear to recede. Warm colors tend to advance, cool ones to recede.

(8) Repeating the above observations under incandescent light shows a slight change in relationships, primarily some apparent lightening of the yellows, and a shift in the violets toward brown.

Conclusions: A color appears more intense upon (or adjacent to) a color of markedly different tone than upon (or adjacent to) one of similar tone. A color appears more intense on a color distant from it in the color circle than upon one nearer it. Color relationships are affected to some degree by the color of light in which they are viewed.



Reading and theoretical studies:



E. H. Gombrich Art and Illusion (11th Printing)

Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, USA, 1969

Pp. 22-62



Sketchbook work: A tomato sandwich.

Time today: Two hours 8 minutes

Thursday 14 October 2010





Course work: Continued repainting work on the Stage Four project. I still have a few new squares to paint as well, but this will require an additional sheet.



Reading and theoretical studies:



(After prolonged search, I was finally able to find and order two more of the recommended texts, both very well used.)

E. H. Gombrich Art and Illusion (11th Printing)

Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, USA, 1969

Pp. xxv-xliv, 3-22



Hajo Dütchling Cézanne

Taschen, Köln, 2003

Pp. 171-191



Sketchbook work: Tried another limited-palette triad today, using new gamboge, alizarin crimson, and cerulean blue. The secondary colors are more neutralized than in my most recent previous experiment, but are superior to the two earliest of the series. One could do useful work with this combination. I still have a few more ideas to try in this personal project. Followed this with a little sketch of a bunch of radishes, using left-over paint on the palette.

Time today: Two hours 36 minutes

Wednesday 13 October 2010




Course work: Repainted several more squares, large and small, for the Stage Four project.



Reading and theoretical studies:



Hajo Dütchling Cézanne

Taschen, Köln, 2003

Pp. 123-169



Sketchbook work: A study of drapery upon a stool.

Time today: One hour 50 minutes

Tuesday 12 October 2010




Course work: Repainted more squares for the Stage Four project.



Reading and theoretical studies:



Hajo Dütchling Cézanne

Taschen, Köln, 2003

Pp. 99-121



E.H. Gombrich, The Story of Art

Phaidon press Limited, Oxford 1978

Pp. 46-79



Sketchbook work: A little heap of mushrooms being prepared for supper, sketched with a red chalk pencil.

Time today: 1 hour 41 minutes

Monday 11 October 2010




Course work: Work on the Stage Four Project continues; today I remixed the blue and yellow previously used, and mixed about one part of the blue with two of the yellow to produce a mid-green, which was used to paint additional squares. Some repainting of previously-painted squares was again done.





Reading and theoretical studies:



Hajo Dütchling Cézanne

Taschen, Köln, 2003

Pp. 65-96



Sketchbook work: A sketch of an old conch horn; I could have lit it better. Another limited palette experiment, today using arylide yellow, vermillion, and cobalt blue. The resulting secondary colors were usable, made nine tints with white, and made useful neutrals when mixed with their complements. A mixture of the three “primaries” produced a strong, dark neutral that would serve as black. This has been the most successful of my experiments to date, and these three colors plus white could be used for a wide range of subjects. I still have several more limited palette ideas to investigate.

Time today: Two hours 21 minutes

Sunday 10 October 2010





Course work: Continued work on the Stage Four project, repainting a number of previously-painted squares in an effort to obtain improved coverage. Made a mixture of cerulean blue and ultramarine blue (~2:1) and painted two eight cm squares; remade the cadmium red and alizarin crimson mix; mixed approximately equal parts of this and the blue mix to obtain a rather muddy and unsatisfactory violet, with which I painted two additional eight cm squares. (Ultramarine blue and alizarin crimson, or, better, pthalocyanine blue and alizarin crimson, would produce a better violet, but are outside the bounds of the project.)



Reading and theoretical studies:



Marylin Scott The Acrylic Artist’s Bible

Chartwell Books, Inc., Edison, New Jersey, USA, 2005

Pp. 90-187

(This very heavily illustrated book fails to live up to its promise of being “An essential reference for the practicing artist;” it provides a fairly superficial overview of media and methodology, a more-detailed look at special techniques and mixed media, and a scant 35 pages devoted to subject areas.)



Hajo Dütchling Cézanne

Taschen, Köln, 2003

Pp. 7-62



Sketchbook work: Some hasty and quite gestural sketches of a yearling deer that was grazing in the yard this afternoon. A sketch of a fine old oak, unfortunately dying.

Weekly reflections on learning experience: Work on the color theory projects continues without major problems, though I am getting a bit tired of painting squares. Reading and theoretical study have improved this week; sketchbook work is about the same.



Time today: Two hours 39 minutes

Saturday 9 October 2010




Course work: Painted some additional squares on the Stage Four project, this time mixing cadmium yellow with lemon yellow (~1:2), and cadmium red with alizarin crimson (~3:1), to produce an approximation of a “true primary”, then using a mixture of the above combination to produce an orange, in a manner similar to that done in Stage Two. This time I made some mixing notes in my sketchbook, as I should have done previously.



Reading and theoretical studies:



Stephen Quiller Painter’s Guide to Color

Watson-Guptill Publications, New York, 1999

Pp. 35-70

(This book and its predecessor Color Choices, Watson Guptill Publications, New York, 1989, are both useful books, especially for water-media artists. The author has selected a set of primary, secondary, and tertiary colors from the wide variety of tubed paints available, and while some of his choices may not be quite in the mainstream of color theory, he defends his reasoning clearly, and paints very well with his chosen colors.)



Marylin Scott The Acrylic Artist’s Bible

Chartwell Books, Inc., Edison, New Jersey, USA, 2005

Pp. 6-89



Sketchbook work: Continuing my experimentation with limited palettes, I painted a color circle with yellow ochre, burnt siena, Paynes’s grey, and their intermediate mixtures. As one would anticipate, all the intermediate mixtures are greyed, and the Payne’s grey and burnt siena mixture is a very deep brown. This palette might be useful for painting sandy or stony semi-desert areas, but one would need to add a substantially bluer “blue”for skies.

I then did a little sketch of a piece of crumpled paper.

Time today: Two hours 19 minutes

Friday 8 October 2010




A failed museum visit: drove 120 km to find the museum closed during its normal hours of operation, with no indication as to why.

Thursday 7 October 2010




Course work: Constructed the grid for Stage Four on 45.7 x 61 cm paper; I expanded this project to 24 eight-cm squares in order to improve my understanding of the subject. Started painting the squares.



Reading and theoretical studies:



Stephen Quiller Painter’s Guide to Color

Watson-Guptill Publications, New York, 1999

Pp. 35-70



E.H. Gombrich, The Story of Art

Phaidon press Limited, Oxford 1978

Pp. 31-45





Sketchbook work: An experiment using red oxide, yellow ochre, and cerulean blue as “primaries.” A color circle done with these yields a neutral green, a neutral orange, and a rich chocolate color instead of a purple (since red oxide and cerulean blue are near-complements). This palette would be useful in late autumn and winter in the American Deep South, where snow is rare and some green is always present. (I am interested in exploring limited palettes, and plan several more similar experiments.)

Time today: Three hours 18 minutes (64h29m)

Wednesday 6 October 2010




Course work: Repainted the colored spots in part i of Stage Three of Project Three, some of them several times in order to get adequate coverage. The yellow spots are more striking on the blue and red backgrounds that the blue and red spots are on the yellow background. The blue spot on the red background, and the red spot on the blue background, appear approximately equal in conspicuity.

Painted the squares to demonstrate brush-marks in part ii of Stage Three of Project Three.

One square was painted smoothly, one was painted with horizontal brush-marks, one with vertical brush-marks, and one with diagonal brush-marks. These were then photographed in frontal illumination, with strong tangential lighting from above, and then from the side, to demonstrate the difference in appearance of the brush-marks with different lighting: a composite image is shown below.

Reading and theoretical studies:



Stephen Quiller Painter’s Guide to Color

Watson-Guptill Publications, New York, 1999

Pp. 71-103



Sketchbook work: A clump of feral pecan trees (planted by squirrels or crows).

Time today: 1 hour 11 minutes

Tuesday 5 October 2010




Course work: (I found the instructions for this project a little nebulous: what follows is my best interpretation.) Started work on Part i of Stage Three of Project Three: painted three 10-cm squares in cadmium yellow, cadmium red light, and cerulean blue. Placed a spot of each of the other two colors within the color square, but will need to paint these spots at least once more to obtain adequate opacity.







Reading and theoretical studies:



E.H. Gombrich, The Story of Art

Phaidon press Limited, Oxford 1978

Pp. 1-30





Sketchbook work: Completed the rooster drawing in colored pencil.

Time today: 2 hours 53 min

Monday 4 October 2010




Course work: Continuing work on Project Three, Stage Two, I painted the last two columns, using a mixture of cadmium red light and cadmium yellow light to produce my orange for mixing. The column mixed with cerulean blue results in a series of mid-tone neutrals that could be useful in a landscape; the column mixed with ultramarine blue produces the darkest neutrals of the entire Stage, ranging through indigo to blue-black to a very nearly true black, thence to a warm black and to a color that would stand in well for burnt umber.

Reading and theoretical studies:



David Cottington Cubism

Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom, 1998

Pp. 58-76

(This book is too short to do the subject justice; I shall look for a more complete work.)



Stephen Quiller Painter’s Guide to Color

Watson-Guptill Publications, New York, 1999

Pp. 8-33



Sketchbook work: Started a colored pencil drawing of a rooster working from a photo that I took.



Time today: 3 hours 5 minutes

Sunday 3 October 2010




Course work: Painted two more columns as part of Project 3, Stage 2; these two were headed by alizarin crimson and cadmium red light, each mixed with increasing amounts of a green made with cerulean blue and lemon yellow. The cadmium red mixtures shift toward green more quickly than do the alizarin crimson: the latter, more nearly a true complement of the green, produces a truer neutral color. The cadmium red and green mixture can produce a color quite near raw umber.









Reading and theoretical studies:



David Cottington Cubism

Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom, 1998

Pp. 32-57



Sketchbook work: A pencil sketch of a piece of ginger root.

Weekly reflections on learning experience: After six painting sessions trying to get a proper grey scale, followed by trying to match the colored squares with the proper grey scale tone, I have more appreciation for the subtleties of tonal difference. Stage 3, mixing the complementary colors, is progressing without major difficulty. Looking back over the course to date, I see that I have worked fairly consistently, with only a few days on which I was unable to do at least a little work on the course. I could devote additional time to reading and study, and it would probably be beneficial to read a few books on technique.





Time today: 1 hour 55 minutes

Friday 1 October 2010




Course work: After a final session of grey-scale adjustment the scale may still be weighted a bit toward black, but at least the steps appear even to my eye. A lengthy session of placing colored squares, squinting, and replacing them finally resulted in the arrangement that best seems to match color tone with greyscale tone, so I then glued them in place.

I then constructed the grid for Stage 2, and painted the columns for lemon yellow and cadmium yellow, using a violet mixed with alizarin crimson and ultramarine blue as the complement. The neutral colors mixed with lemon yellow and violet tend toward green; those mixed with cadmium yellow and violet tend toward orange. Colors quite near the umbers can be produced with each yellow, and a usable yellow ochre substitute emerges in the cadmium yellow column.



Reading and theoretical studies:



David Cottington Cubism

Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom, 1998

Pp. 6-31



Sketchbook work: A charcoal sketch of a battered old tin candlestick (still useful when electricity fails!).

Time today: 2 hours 51 minutes