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