COLOR: Individual Still Life Arrangements

Last night the students made their own still life arrangements of three to five objects.
Kate took a limited amount of objects and repeated them throughout the composition creating rhythms of similar colors and shapes. The colors are electric and luminous like a video game. The objects and placement is also reminiscent of a game where the player wanders through a landscape of prizes and pitfalls.
Rachel's drawing has a very dramatic almost narrative quality. The light creeps across the floor pooling around the objects as if escaping from a cracked door. Notice how she has swapped the colors on the objects to unify the arrangement.

NEXT WEEK: LINEAR PERSPECTIVE (BRING RULERS AND YARD STICKS, PENCILS AND ERASERS)

COLOR: Dice and Balls

Christian

David

Veroncia

Last night the class made colored pencil drawings on black paper. When working on toned paper, it is beneficial to take advantage of the local value of the paper. In the case of black paper, the shadows are already present. Therefore, the approach is to work from dark to light as opposed to white paper where one works from light to dark. First the light areas are sketched in with white pencil working around the shadows. Then the colors are applied.
Christian's drawing at the top has a lot of character with a complementary color scheme of tertiary colors (yellow-green and red-violet or magenta). The quirky shapes are complemented by expressive rendering of the values and simple, stylized marks in the background.
David's drawing too exhibits lively mark-making and bold highlights. His drawing illustrates the power and importance in using the white pencil.
Veronica's drawing exhibits very acidic and electrified complementary colors. Again the mark-making supports the colors in a very active way. In addition, notice how she has placed proportional amounts of each color across the composition to reinforce unity.

COLOR: Personal Still Life

Andrew

Bonnie

David

Luke

Matt

Today students arranged their own still life to draw. Andrew's drawing is well balanced with large and small objects that relate by size and shape. All of the objects share a common pattern within the dots. Bonnie's drawing exhibits well proportioned objects with bold colors and textural mark-making. David's drawing pays strong attention to the distal cues with overlapping shapes, a variety of sizes and dynamic use of diagonals. The marks on the ground plane suggest motion and the tilted bowling pins add to the energy. Luke's drawing is very well balanced by weight of the objects as well as repeating colors. Notice the placement of the greens in particular. And lastly, Matt's drawing is supported by a rectangular motif found in the white paper shapes and the table as well as the die.

COLOR: Dice and Balls

David

Georgia

Jessica

Yesterday the class began working with colored pencils. David's drawing (top) illustrates subtle transitions in color and tone with a variety of marks and rendered values. The negative area and ground plane help draw the focus on the still life while suggesting depth.
Georgia's drawing (middle) exhibits rich, saturated complementary as well as analogous colors. The number and ball are electric and bright advancing toward the viewer. The die recedes yet is also energized and activated with a complementary green in the background to the red die.
Jessica's drawing (bottom) is primarily a complementary color scheme of orange and a variety of blues. Again, the colors are rich and bold. The mark-making in the background is a very effective contrast to the solidity of the foreground.

COLORED PENCILS: Still Life

Graham Metcalfe

Joanna Alvarez

Shiho Nakagawa

Last night students drew from their own still life arrangements. Graham's drawing (top) is very well balanced (left/ right, top/bottom) and well proportioned to the paper. The forms are very well rendered addressing not only the light patterns but the various color patterns within each individual object as well. Joanna's drawing (middle) is very graphic. The lines are bold and sharp. The value range has been reduced to the most contrasting tonalities and rendered with rich colors. Shiho's drawing (bottom) is another than has skillfully rendered the light and color patterns. The forms are three-dimensional and set well within the space. Remember the key to successful color drawings is to be aware that objects and not just a single hue. A red object may exhibit multiple red hues, pinks, violets and even blue hues.

COLOR

Last night students drew from individual still life arrangements.

Ashley Garr

Ashley's drawing is mostly a complementary color scheme (red-violet and yellow-green). The objects are arranged in a triangle bringing diagonals to the composition. The entire paper has been addressed creating directed light that gradually recedes into the background.

Jacob Lockler

Jacob's drawing evokes a scene from film noir. The lighting is very focused and direct capturing an air of suspense and intrigue. In addition, the objects lend themselves to the narrative. Each item is rich with symbolism and metaphor.

COLOR

Last Friday the class began working with colored pencils. The first still life arrangement consisted of one die and one ball placed on a letter or number.

Ezra Barbour

The drawing above exhibits a well balanced composition with attention to the left/right placement as well as top/bottom location. In addition, the objects are well proportioned to the paper dimensions. The categories of light have been well addressed resulting in three-dimensional objects with believable sense of mass and weight.

Celindrea Debuck

Dorothy Fast

In the afternoon, students made their own still life arrangements. Celindrea's migrating dinosaurs are very well rendered with light and volume. She has effectively applied the Distal Cues where appropriate.
Dorothy's haunting structure of antlers looming over a figure and die evokes a cold, wintery scene. The tangled structure and cast shadows add to the image's sense of menace. The combination of colors skillfully complements the subject matter.

COLOR: Still Life

John Burgess

Last night the class made drawings from their own arrangement of 3 to 5 objects. They were free to multiple, distort and embellish the objects in any way. John has created a composition using repetition, scale change and atmospheric perspective. The pin cushions introduce the composition and establish a rhythm throughout the space. The areas of blue make a secondary pathway. The image reads like an astronaut lost in a surreal solar system. Scrambling, yet restricted by zero gravity as he tries to collect his nightmarishly large, human-made objects that have escaped from the loading bay. 

COLOR: Dice and Balls

Jack Ryan

Last night we began class with a discussion on color schemes and some of the technical considerations when working with colored pencils on black paper in particular. Everyone drew from a simple still life arrangement of a ball supported on a plastic letter or number and a die. In the drawing above, Jack has very skillfully located complementary colors. The orange letter is surrounded by blue and the green die is encircled in red. All of which are placed on a surface of analogous colors spanning across the color wheel moving left to right with cool colors to warm. In addition his mark-making on the sphere addresses the cross-contours by swirling out from the highlight. In contrast, the horizontal strokes on the ground plane reinforce the flatness of the table top.

WED 4/18 & THURS 4/19 COLOR continued

Amy Eldridge

Dayana Leon

Students finished large scale color drawings. Amy's drawing above is electrified by her use of complementary colors in the floor boards and shadows. The color scheme adds to the dynamics and energy of the composition established by the tumbling bowling pins.
Dayana has employed more of a split complementary color scheme (yellow, red-violet, blue-violet). She has beautifully rendered the color gradations as well as the textural qualities of the objects.

TUES. 4/18 COLOR: Large Scale Compositions

Nemea Laessig: work in progress

The T/Th class started their large color drawings. Above is a picture of Nemea's work space. You can see that Nemea has chosen to work with a more traditional still life arrangement.

MON. 4/16 COLOR: Large Scale Compositions

Becky Gonzalez: work in progress

Class began with a discussion on Color Schemes; standard color combinations that create balanced and unified compositions. After the slide lecture, students worked with items brought from home or chose 5 to 7 objects presented in class to create large scale compositions in color.

HOMEWORK # 7 COLOR

Govinda Taskey

Zoe Brester-Pennings

This is a repeat of the in-class drawing.  Arrange a grouping of objects and make a drawing using a color scheme that complements the subjects in mood and/or function.  Pay attention to composition, negative space and eye level. Your drawing must include drawn objects from observation but you may add elements from your imagination as well. Paper size 12x15in.
The two drawings above exhibit strong compositions with  great use of color. Govinda's drawing is rich with textural variety and vivid, brilliant colors.  Zoe's drawing drawing has an excellent rhythm produced by the meandering green toothepaste while employing atmospheric perspective to add a sense of depth.