Still-Life Painting Assignment

Outside of Class Painting #1 ART 130

Due two weeks from now: October 10^th.

You are to set up a still life outside of class with at least three colorful, interesting, and related objects. 

The Rules:

·        Use any of the four approaches that we have (or will have) gone over in class

·        Your objects must be related

·        You must make sure that you paint LIFE SIZE or larger

·        Set it up so that you have a strong light source, and always paint at the same time of day.

·        Your subject must be at or just below the viewer’s eye level.

·        Do not crop (or even crowd) your objects, though they may overlap.  Choose a subject small enough to fit easily on your support, and arrange the subject to justify your rectangle shape.

·        Your painting may be no smaller than 9x12 and no larger than 11x14 on any support appropriate for oil painting

·        You must not say “But I don’t have anything interesting to paint. . . “Poppycock!!!  Find a way!  Thinking that way is simply lazy.

Helpful hints

·        Take some time to research some artists that specialized in, or otherwise mastered, still life painting.  Try to paint like them. Fairfield Porter, Janet Fish, William Bailey, Chardin, De Heem, Caravaggio, Emil Carlson, Tom Buechner, Manet, Cezanne, Van Gogh, Georgia O’Keefe, Picasso, Giorgio Morandi. . .all come to mind.  Ask yourself: “How would they do it?”

·        Feel free to bring your partially finished paintings into class for feedback before the due date

Four Approaches to Painting

Four different Approaches to Painting       ART130

Stevenson, Professor

This series of projects is to be completed over the next several class periods on four different 9x12 canvas board panels.  What you do not finish in class you will be expected to finish outside of class using a photographic reference and/or information from your existing paintings. Each panel will have a similar subject (6 colorful objects) and composition to the others, but each will be done using a different painting approach from the others. 

Panel #1--Indirect painting

You are to make a grisaille (pronounced grizz-eye) of the still life.  Use only ivory black and titanium white.  Mix a light middle gray to be the darkest value, and render the still life using a range of light grays. Be sure to keep your values on the high side, and to keep things simple.  Detail can be articulated later.  When the grisaille has dried fully, glaze over each object with the appropriate color.  Using this stage as a point of departure, seek to finish the painting by finding areas that need more of a mixed color or direct approach.

Panel #2—Direct approach using directly mixed color

This approach is very simple.  After making a detailed drawing using a hard pencil (this should take you much longer than the other drawings, and works best if you think of it as a “paint by number”), simply mix and paint the still life directly. There should be one layer of paint—not two or three as in all the other approaches.  There is no restriction on the use of white or any other color.  Simply determine what the final perceived color is by taking into account the local color and the color of the light.  I suggest starting somewhere in the middle of the composition and expanding out from there.  Simple, but not easy!

Panel #3—Direct approach on imprematura ground

Cover a clean panel with a layer of middle gray oil paint (get it into ALL the nooks and crannies of the panel). Do not cut the paint with any mineral spirits, though you may mix in a tiny bit of Liquin to speed the drying time. When the panel is covered, wipe off as much paint as possible.  The result will be more of a stain than a layer of paint.  This is called a ground color, or imprematura.  Do not start this approach until the gray imprematura ground is completely dry.  Loosely block in the drawing using a hard pencil.  Then, using a warm, dark color, block in the general dark shapes.  This approach demands that the painting be separated into darks (usually warm), middle tones (usually cool), and lights (usually warm).  Once the darks are blocked in with transparent warm colors, mix the more opaque middle tones and lights and block them in.  Wherever the color of the ground is correct just leave it showing through.

Panel #4—Indirect approach using “custom” imprematura

Using a hard pencil, loosely block in the drawing on a clean, white panel.  Then, making sure to USE NO WHITE PAINT(because it makes colors opaque and grayish looking), directly block in the appropriate colors using mineral spirits washes (hint: be sure to be accurate, taking into account reflected light as well as local color, but always err on the colorful side.  In other words, if you see a hint of a color, bring it out as much a possible).  If a color is very light, make the wash very transparent, using the white of the canvas instead of mixing tints.  Once all the white of the canvas is covered and the washes are finished to your satisfaction, then you may mix opaque colors to cover the parts of the washes that do not work.  Be sure the let the wash color show if it turns out to be the right color.  Note the way the wash color seems very luminous and intense compared to the mixed opaque colors.  Use these relation-ships to your advantage!

Assignment #2: The Three Eggs

Three Idealized Objects

The project is due in two weeks

As was discussed in class, the color theory displayed in your color chart shows that each of our major hues achieves its highest intensity at a certain point on the value scale.  In real life color on form tends to act this way as well.  For example, on a bright yellow object, the shadows cannot be as saturated as the light areas because of how yellow behaves in light and shadow.  In the same way, on a blue object the shadows appear more saturated than the light areas (even if the local color is a light blue).

For this exercise, you are to make simple paintings of ovoid forms (also called eggs).  For each one you are to choose a primary or secondary color and paint each form as if it was illuminated by a neutral, full spectrum spotlight.  To do this, theorize where the lights and shadow should be (including highlights, core shadow, and reflected light), and place the tints, shades, and the pure color where they would appear according to your color chart.  The goal is to make each spherical or ovoid colored object convincing as it might exist in space.   The attached diagram describing light and shadow on a sphere should help you decide where each value should go.  Be sure to include the cast shadows.

In short, first figure out where the light and shadow goes, and then fill it in as you would the color chart.

Color Chart is due next week!

Remember that you need to have your color charts finished for next Wednesday.  If they are still wet, that's okay.