Law unto yourself ?

Colour Theories
Theories

A long time ago I thought I needed to know absolutely everything about laws & rules on painting and especially on portrait painting. The more theoretical knowledge the better. For example regarding colours. I examined the Goethe’s and Itten´s colour theories. However I hardly understood a tenth of it. How often have I put away books to take them in hand yet again?  More than once I wondered whether book knowledge was really my ´peace of cake´. In fact, I developed an aversion to theories in general. Not really convenient of course if you want to become a professional artist. Sometimes my progress suffered from slowness. Now, after all these years, I have freed myself from the idea that a thorough theoretical knowledge is essential for a good start. I created my own rules and verities.   I failed my way to success.

Please listen to the attached video : Neil Gaiman’s commencement speech to the University of the arts graduating class of 2012 Philadelphia. A touching speech for making your own rules in art and ignore sometimes existing theories and dogma´s.

Below the written text of the speech.

 

Neil Gaiman’s commencement speech to the University of the arts graduating class of 2012 Philadelphia

I never really expected to find myself giving advice to people graduating from an establishment of higher education. I never graduated from any such establishment. I never even started at one. I escaped from school as soon as I could, when the prospect of four more years of enforced learning before I’d become the writer I wanted to be was stifling. Continue reading “Law unto yourself ?”

Value and colour, what is the problem?

You learn the most from your own mistakes, I’ve mentioned this before. “But how does that work?” you might ask. Sometimes you know that your painting is unsuccessful but you do not know why. In the beginning, that was also a problem for me. Perhaps the most important thing I taught myself is this: Make a checklist to be used after finishing a painting. (Applause from family and friends is trappy: It’s not hard to get compliments and believe that you’ve done an amazing job when you actually should know better.)

Some criteria that you can think of:

  • Is the composition solid enough?
  • Is the value contrast okay?
  • Is the use of colour okay?
  • Did I use enough paint?
  • Do I see enough “bold” brush strokes?
  • Not too many meticulous & irrelevant details?
    There are numerous points to invent. Later I’ll come back to this issue. Try to make such a list for yourself.

An important observation is this: Value contrast can be more important than colour contrast. When a painting is not really a hit because you got stuck in colours that don’t want to accomodate, remember that the solution perhaps lies in the value contrast.

self portrait 2self portrait 1

chiaroscuro

I made two images with the self-timer in my studio. On the first the light source is right in front of me. On the second from aside. I transformed the two into a simple grayscale drawing. In the first drawing the portrait has to come alive from subtle colour contrasts. In image 2, the face is completely formed by the strong shadow. Drawing 2 has a higher value contrast and that makes it much easier to achieve a strong portrait and to obtain a good likeness. See also this article.