More conflicting advice. Read something on Cheap Joe’s art site championing mid-range values for watercolorists. Well, it’s a transparent medium, higher keyed. But for the rest of us, let’s stay out of the muddy waters of the middle range of values!
My teacher, Ron Lemen, has some instruction floating around online about sticking to a limited number of values toward each end of the grayscale. At his Studio2ndStreet site, materials on using a limited palette stress the importance of picking up colors of the same value on your paintbrush.
Alexander Schaefer has posted a useful graphic lining up some sample colors against a grayscale. The same graphic shows how color temperature affects those samples: cool light, warm shadow, and vice versa.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Outline: Drawing from the Outside In or Inside Out? Drawing Resources Online, Part 1
In this corner, champions of nailing down the outline first. In the other, people who start their drawing in the middle and let the proportions evolve from there. At least, it’s starting to sound like a fight to me, as I begin cataloging and reviewing online art lessons.
The get the outline right first camp terrifies me. A perfect outline? Not going to happen; so I’m defeated from the get-go. Seems easier to me to paint in the general areas of light and shadow and refine the edges from there.
Maybe the conflict between outside in versus inside out is the conflict between drawing versus painting. Or media which are set in stone or nearly so, such as ink or watercolor, or oil paint you can push around. Or line versus color.
One proponent of silhouette – and a whole lot more interesting material – is Michael Britton at ArtAcademy.com. You can see a sample online portrait how-to video on his homepage. I would get on his mailing list post haste. Sculpture plays a big role.
Cheap Joe’s Art offers has instruction online, with a watercolor slant. This article shows the graphic power of getting the outline right in figure drawing: Getting Figures Into Shape. One suggestion is to take an old not-quite-right work and reconfigure the silhouettes to come up with a more successful design. Hmm, maybe if I can get this silhouette thing working for me I’ll warm up to the idea …
The get the outline right first camp terrifies me. A perfect outline? Not going to happen; so I’m defeated from the get-go. Seems easier to me to paint in the general areas of light and shadow and refine the edges from there.
Maybe the conflict between outside in versus inside out is the conflict between drawing versus painting. Or media which are set in stone or nearly so, such as ink or watercolor, or oil paint you can push around. Or line versus color.
One proponent of silhouette – and a whole lot more interesting material – is Michael Britton at ArtAcademy.com. You can see a sample online portrait how-to video on his homepage. I would get on his mailing list post haste. Sculpture plays a big role.
Cheap Joe’s Art offers has instruction online, with a watercolor slant. This article shows the graphic power of getting the outline right in figure drawing: Getting Figures Into Shape. One suggestion is to take an old not-quite-right work and reconfigure the silhouettes to come up with a more successful design. Hmm, maybe if I can get this silhouette thing working for me I’ll warm up to the idea …
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