Lighting

Koo also provided handouts of articles she's authored for The Artists Magazine. Lighting Your Studio from the October 2010 issue provides excellent thoughts on handling lighting in the studio.

Summarizing, when selecting lighting, look for Correlated Color Temperature (CCT) around 5,000K and Color Rendering Index (CRI) of 90 or better, 100 being the best.

I've poked around quite a few manufacturers's sites for compact fluorescent bulbs and these from BlueMax look interesting: http://www.bluemaxlighting.com/compact_fluorescent_39_ctg.htm

BlueMax was the only manufacturer I found that supplied both CCT and CRI. Most had some fancy lingo and no hard numbers. (BlueMax did report that Ottlite has a CRI of 95.)

Three of these are on their way:

Old Master Design V

Our last day started with a discussion of sacred geometry. Golden Ratio, Fibonacci Series, and Armatures (Golden Spiral and Bouleau). We learned to build a Golden Rectangle and a Root Rectangle with calculator, proportion wheel, and geometry. We also learned to build Golden Spirals. We built a Bouleau Armature and laid it over an Old Master painting, testing for applicability. My example didn't show much correlation but others' did. I'm leaving out all the details but perhaps later I'll get to some.

Koo encouraged us to become familiar with the characteristics of our paints--transparency/opacity, staining, toxicity, warm/cool, chroma, inorganic/organic.

There was more discussion on form:
Highlight - opaque, cool
Local color - semi-opaque, warm
Halftone - semi-transparent, cool
Shadow - transparent, warm

There was a great presentation on Imagery and Content. I have supporting documentation which is fortunate as my note taking slipped during animated discussion.

So here it is. Five days of lecture, discussion, and hands-on exercise. Please don't feel these five posts at all possible of capturing my rich learning experience. I will over time explore various principles as well as try to coalesce groups of principles and present them out with this workshop's labeling.

Thank you's go out to:

Collins Artworks, Steve and Sherry Collins, for hosting this workshop. You know how to make it look easy. True Professionals.

Denise, Dorothy, Rick, Sherry, and Marilyn. My fellow students, all extremely talented professional artists. I learned from each of you. And thanks for all your support!

Koo Schadler. An incredible ball of energy. You entertained while teaching. I am in awe of your knowledge. Thank you for sharing so freely. You're the best!

Old Master Design IV

Today began with Shapes--positive and negative. Shapes don't necessarily mean an apple or a cast shadow. Think about a contained shadow on the apple merging with the apple's cast shadow. Shapes should have interest, aesthetic value. Positive and negative shapes should fit like a jigsaw puzzle. Watch out for small, fussy shapes. Look to Vermeer for good examples.

Lost and found edges, weaving in and out. Cast shadows and contained shadows or local darks presenting and hiding edges.

Watch for straight lines; there are often many to be found. Watch out for averaging out small straights into larger curves. Be careful not to have lines sunken in.

A good test for design is one that holds beauty as it moves from color to black and white to line only.

Decorative patterns. Notice them juxtaposed with flat or volumetric areas. Keep the pattern values close together. Can be stenciled right on top--that is, not necessarily following form.

Perspective. Oftentimes, portraits are elevated in relation to the horizon line. The horizon line is the artist's eye level.

This evening I have presented a rather capsulated and non-illustrated reflection. There were exercises with line based with take home as well as workshop material so it would be less than illustrative.

What is really going on with me, though, is that I am beginning to see how all these design principles are interlocked. It's not just warm/cool, or light, mid, dark, or cast shadow, or cool/warm/cool/warm of form, or interesting shapes, or any other principles. There is no taking away that the analysis is important, but the cohesive event that one experiences in an instant, the gestalt, is where it's at. It's a tool that one can practice for a lifetime.

Old Master Design III

Value. Tone. Broken into three levels: Light, Middle, and Dark. Not be confused with highlights or contained shadows. These are values of the local color of an object. Remember that black hat? That's a good example of a Dark. A white collar is a Light. A middle, well, you get the idea.

The concept is to see aggregations of levels. For example, in this first exercise we are asked to increase shadows so as to break up the lights. Note on the left how I shaded under the jaw and cheek? See how it broke up that light mass?

In this next exercise, I added highlights to the massive black cloak and inner garments.

In this exercise, this image was overlaid with a transparent sheet and I painted the massive tonal areas.

Here is what I came up with. With this kind of exercise, one must learn to average levels so as to come up with so few levels. This of posterization using Photoshop.

Some thoughts on value levels:

• Lights are generally cool whites and grays.
• Darks are generally warm blacks and browns.
• Try to use a limited range of values within each value level. Keep it simple.
• Work towards less value distinction in detail.

Create relationships of flat and volumetric shapes. Flat shapes often occur in portraits and are usually black. Think of cloaks or hats.

Extreme values of white and black are often held back to the end of the painting when they can be applied judiciously. Just small amounts can help to make a painting pop.

Be observant of massing--that is, areas of similar tone. Try to link cast and contained shadows.

Controlling values. Two main methods:

Scumbles. Semitransparent layer of opaque white. Sounds like an oxymoron, doesn't it? Thing is, if an opaque pigment is applied thinly enough, it will still have some degree of transparency. A scumble lightens values, decreases chroma, and softens edges. It is a unifying agent. It cools the underlying color.

Glazes. Transparent layer of color. Inherently transparent pigments work best but even opaque pigments can work if thinned enough (like scumbles). A glaze darkens values and creates luminosity.

If this seems like less than a day's activities, it is only because I am awash in information. Without time to reflect properly, I feel that I can't relate enough. And yet, I must present while it's fresh in mind. Distorted reflections! :-)

In the big picture, I am leaning so, so much, having a wonderful time, and getting to know some really great and talented people.

Oh, and one last thing, something that just came to mind that slipped by yesterday. Koo was talking on cast shadows and pointed out how a couple of figures in a painting did not have shadows. Angels. Ethereal beings don't cast shadows. That just got to me...

Old Master Design II

Today's discussion began with concepts of the color black, a true color and one that plays an important role. Not as a shadow, but as the local color of an object--coat, hat, whatever. By using black, one is assured of reaching into at least one end of the tonal scale. It's also a fine desaturizer as well. Remember my Zorn palette posts where I got greens from vine black with yellow and violets with red?

Further talk on Old Master palette opened up the possibility of considering green as a fourth primary--or maybe at times a replacement for yellow.

Below is a color exercise that takes me back to my "Yellow and Blue Don't Make Green" exercises. Although for today's exercises we used high chroma pigments, we were encouraged to try replacing warm yellow (cad yellow) and warm red (cad red) with yellow and red ocher. Below you can see that I tried out the yellow ocher. Good stuff.

We were encouraged to understand our palette. For each pigment, what is the chroma, temperature, and value?

I think this might be a quote from today, "Beautiful color comes from relationships." Establish relationships by using lots of low chromas and neutrals. Use areas of warm and cool.

Next up was light, beginning with cast shadow principles--sharp delineation at source, diffusing as shadow extends; mimic shape of casting object; express a definite end; show a bit of warmth in deepest shadows; incorporate a "light accent" by presenting extra light on the forward edge at the start of cast shadow.

Below is an exercise that not only had one thinking about cast shadows but applying principles of perspective to place the shadows realistically. By realism is not meant "exactly right" in a mathematical sense but close enough not to draw uneasy attention.

Continuing with light, we studied highlights. Correct placement is a good start but one must consider that a highlight diffuses--it's not just a hard-edged dot. You can see my reminder note to myself. Also, I hadn't considered all the places a highlight could appear on the vase. I think that this kind of exercise is so very useful as I think I will now be looking, simply looking and seeing, in better style.

Today's final exercise involved creating our own tonal scale from a model. Not bad, but I did have a bit of a leap between the third and fourth down. That's when I flipped direction and wrapped up by coming in from the black. Still, pretty close.

Note that although I have mostly been presenting today's session from the exercise point of view, each subject began with lecture. I should also mention that we have a textbook of Koo's creation that follow the workshop perfectly. Another student and I were comparing experience, both of us remembering Koo's exact words as we read her textbook last evening after class. In other words, super reinforcement.

Thought that was it? Nope! :-) Next we took on reflected light. Shiny objects, from highly reflective metal and mirror that capture fine detail to softer objects with more amorphous shape. 

Lastly, we began looking at Value, the most important element of interest. A well designed painting based on fine value will stand up without color. Fascinating thought, isn't it? 

Old Master Design I

Today was the first day of my first in-person workshop. I'm still grinning ear to ear.

Let me begin by presenting this article by Koo Schadler, a fine prelude to course content. From this comes a sense that great masterpieces are most made of great design.

The first design principle presented was the limited palette of primaries, black, and white. The primaries may be split into co-primaries, a warm and cool version of each. Continuing, there is a preponderance of low chroma with small bits of high chroma. Also, lots of neutrals.


A hands-on exercise in acrylics (the medium of choice for all this week's exercises) of making neutrals by mixing primaries with complementaries, brown, black, gray, and white helped tie theory and lecture to hand and eye. "Killing chroma" was the motto.

The second design principle introduced warm versus cool relationships as large-area visual opposites. This was not to get mired in detail but to pick out the overt masses of relative warmth and coolness.



A hands-on exercise had us painting onto clear acrylic above an old masters image. Blue for cool, orange for warm.





Please understand that this is a very roughed out version of today's incredibly rich presentations. Koo is as kind as she is fascinating--completely giving of her knowledge and obviously brilliant on her subject.

At this time, I feel that if I had a day between each day of coursework that I could better present the material, but there's no down time. I may be expanding here on these workshops long after they have finished. In the meantime, I am having an absolute blast!