Author: markharchar

Greg Manchess

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Hello all. The Constant Art Student returns from more months of slacking. I can’t say that I have been art slacking as much as blog slacking. I have been drawing and painting with most of my spare time, but I feel compelled to make a comment on a painting from Greg Manchess that I have been studying. My latest endeavor has been to make a conscious effort to loosen up my drawing and painting style. Since Greg is one of my favorite artists with this looser painting style, I decided that analyzing his work as I would an old master painting would be beneficial to my cause. Spectrum 16 came out this year and had this wonderful portrait painting of C3PO from Star Wars. Big, bold brush strokes could be seen in the repoduction, so I thought that it would be a great place to start. What a deceivingly simply looking painting this is. Forgive the lack luster reproduction of the image I have posted here. I am sure that it pales in comparison to the original, however, a number of points of note can made using this version. To give some background on how I proceeded with studying this painting, I placed a sheet of acetate over the image and mixed paints to color match what Greg was using (or what I percieved he was using) to get the colors here. What I found rather astounded me. Colors that I thought were right out of the tube such as yellow ochre or naples yellow were not that simple when viewed directly over top of the original. The main areas of color that are in the midtone range are a combination of yellow ochre AND either raw unmber or burnt umber. Wheras Greg most likely used Old Holland Violet Grey for the light areas, I was able to make this color by mixing Ultramarine blue and cadmium orange with white. Ultramarine blue, napthol red, alizarin crimson and combinations of white or umbers fill the shadows. Once I found how to make these color mixtures, I started to realize the temperature shift that Greg employees in this piece. Shiny metal is difficult to begin with, but Greg has simplified the process by using a basic cool light, warm shadow composition. You can see the cool blues and greys in the light areas and this temperature pattern is reinforced by what I saw in the choice of raw versus burnt umber usage. The cool lights on the eye indentations (for examples) are reflected into the warm shadow areas directly across the socket. On another front, I also noticed Greg’s expert use of soft and lost edges on the forehead of the droid and well as his left and right shoulders. Considering what I have learned from this “simple” painting, I am glad I didn’t start with one of his mutliple figure Conan pieces.

Frank Brangwyn

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I just finished reading a dizzying dissertation on color theory, specifically about warm vs. cool color theory. What is coming to mind after that is something that Greg Manchess said to me. “It doesn’t matter what the color is if the values are right. Could this truly be the key? Is this perception of warmth versus cool colors related to intensity and saturation rather than warmth vs. cold? If it is purely warmth vs. cold, how do you have relative warmth and relative coolness. In this painting by Frank Brangwyn, I am looking at what is pushing the figures to the forefront. Even though the ship has reds in it, they are less saturated that the browns in the figures clothing. So the figures push forward. There are sharper details and line in the figures than the ship, so the ship pushes back. There are higher value contrasts in the figures than the ship, so the figures push forward. And if you view the image in grayscale, none of these observations change. So I ask, does color temperature matter if value and edge and saturation and intensity are correct?

Louis Daguerre

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Today I am going to thank James Gurney for posting this piece on his blog. I am not familiar with this artist, however, this piece is a fantastic example of the topics that I have been looking into, specifically how light affects objects and how color temperature affects an image. In this image by Louis Daguerre, we see a number of architetural elements illuminated by moonlight (presumably based on the name of the piece.) There are some drastic differences in how light is affecting the different planes based on there orientation to the light source. Let’s look at the division that occurs nearly straight down the center of the piece. Everything on the left of ceneter is being directly illuminated by the moonlight. Everything to the right of center is being indirectly lit from either moonlight bleeding around the edge of the planes and filling the shadow side with light, or it is being lit by reflected light bouncing off of other planes in the piece. The differences in how the light is affecting these areas is extraordinary. The directly lighted planes show colors that are more saturated and shadows that are deeper and darker in spots. The deatils are sharper with harder edges and greater ranges of value and color are observed. The indirectly lit area shows desaturate areas of color and the values of the shadows are much higher than in some of the lighted areas. The areas illuminated with reflected light from the ground or nearby wall surfaces show brighter values and a local color in the reflected light. There is a marked lack of detail in these areas and the edges are much softer. This image provides me with alot of information that I will use on the current painting I am working on which the lighting is on figures but direction of the light source and positioning of objects are similar.

Frederic Remington

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Here is a piece from illustrator Frederic Remington. I chose this image as it is a great example of my current study of how light and color temperature affect an image, it’s mood and its feel. Here we have two native Americans on horseback. It appears to be winter at night. Remington however made the decision to use a warm lighting and warm shadow composition which nearly entirely negates the expected feel of winter at night. This landscape is warm and inviting, expansive and displays no hints of foreboding, danger or conflict. The purples of the shadows and the sky in conjunction with the reds of the horses and background mountains envelops the viewer in an inviting scene that regardless of the weather and isolated locale, you want to enter in and explore. For my own piece of mind, I tested this asertion and put the image in photoshop and applied color curves that cooled the shadows and sky with a bluish hue rather than red violet. The effect was obvious in that the snow became cold. The atmosphere became uninviting and the feel was bleeker. This all by doing nothing but cooling the image down. I am beginning to see a pattern: Cool light and cool shadows yields a dreary and bleak feel. Warm lights and warm shadows yields a hopeful, inviting and comfortable feel. I am expecting then that a mixture of either cool lights and warm shadows or warm lights and cool shadows will yield specific feels in a work. The next few images I post will explore that.

Aaron Miller

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I asked Aaron months ago if I could analyze a piece of his and he told me yes. Then I proceeded to stop posting. Sorry Aaron. Now that I have picked back up on this, it is time to get Aaron in here. However, I have decided to look at his Agents of Artifice contest, third place winning piece as considering I am currently focusing on lighting, this is far more complex than the other piece I was looking at. (Congratulations again Aaron, BTW) Aaron has some wild lighting going on in this piece. He has multiple light sources going on here, reflected lights, deep shadows and highlights all occuring in night time atmospheric darkness. The major light source appears to be the monster’s eye, casting a yellow hue on the angel wings and the monster’s hands/fingers. Interestingly, the yellow light appears to be on the opposite site of the left hand fingers than it should be considering the poistion of the light source, yet the illumination on the area is convincing and doesn’t look out of place. The green ooze is emitting a yellow/green light which is providing rim light for the left arm and the spear head as well as adding some reflected light into the shadows of the back of the head and tinting the hightlights on the teeth. There are cool blue rim lights on the monster’s right hand and some on the teeth, some on her legs and a touch on the back yet none of this light is reaching the edge of the angel’s wings. There is a bright highlight on her chest and on the top of the monster’s head that like many Rembrandt paintings, doesn’t appear to come from anywhere, unless it is the spear head in which the reflected light from her chest and its head is actually brighter than the source. And this light seems to have no effect on the monster’s left arm. Yet it works. Moonlight highlights the rain drops as they fall, the red ooze adds warm reflected light into some of the lower shadow areas. At this point in my own painting, I cannot even conceive of trying to tackle a piece with lighting this complicated. Kudos to you and if you are reading Aaron and have anything to add, please chime in.