It is important not to confuse a Statement of Intent with an Artist Statement. A Statement of Intent (SOI) is a declaration of your plans and your ideas for a specific project, while an Artist Statement is a statement which is written by an artist (many times after the work is finished) in order to give a viewer more information about the process by which the work was created as well as the conceptual ideas which were being implemented. They go in completely different directions. An SOI goes from conception to fruition/realization, and an AS goes from conception to fruition/realization and back to the conception but now with reflection. For this post we will first be examining on how to write a Statement of Intent, and the next lesson we will be looking at examples at Artist Statements and see how other artists have used words to enhance the experience someone has with a piece of art.

Assignment:

What I want you to do is set up a schedule for your artistic working schedule (yes, artists also have schedules unfortunately). There is often a romantic notion that artists get to sit and dream all day, only to be interrupted by manic artistic outbursts. But this is generally not the case. All of the artists I know work a lot on their work, and by a lot I mean they often have a full time job, and still manage to work on their own work for at least 20 hours a week. This may sound crazy to you, but please keep in mind that this website is structured as a typical college level course, and students in physical colleges generally spend at least 15 hours a week in school. This is how you should approach your work schedule. As something physically which you “go to” and work for an allotted amount of time.

While it is great to shoot for the stars the first most important thing is to have realistic goals in place. If you can afford to only work 8 hours a week on your artistic work, then allot that amount of time to it. The following Statement of Intent sample below is merely a sample which is geared towards an average student. You can choose to try and work as much as possible, or you can also take it slower. One of the most important things to keep in mind is that you should have a physical schedule which you are held to. Put it up in a prominent space in your room and then check off all the days where you completed the task.  You can download a monthly calendar template here and print it out, or buy a nice planner if you wish to write about and update your tasks for each day of work.

The theory of 10,000 hours of work as a measure of genius.

I do not wish to scare you with the amount of work that is needed to achieve genius, but would like to offer the following theory as a guideline as to how much the “Masters of Art” generally worked before achieving their status. In 2008 Malcolm Gladwell wrote a book called Outliers in which he postulated the theory that geniuses almost always worked harder, and longer at what they did as compared to others. And generally an expert level status was achieved when that artist had worked for 10,000 hours in their discipline

““The curious thing about Ericsson’s study is that he and his colleagues couldn’t find any “naturals” – musicians who could float effortlessly to the top while practising a fraction of the time that their peers did. Nor could they find “grinds”, people who worked harder than everyone else and yet just didn’t have what it takes to break into the top ranks. Their research suggested that once you have enough ability to get into a top music school, the thing that distinguishes one performer from another is how hard he or she works. That’s it. What’s more, the people at the very top don’t just work much harder than everyone else. They work much, much harder.” (Gladwell, 2008)

Understanding this idea is very important if you want to progress as an artist. There is a common misunderstanding that artists are born, not made. But if we look throughout history we find thousands of examples of just the opposite. For instance, Mozart is often considered to be the definition of a “child prodigy” with natural talent. But did you know that Mozart was taught by his father who was a music teacher and pianist? He later became friends with one of the most powerful composers of the era (Haydn) by the age of 8, and had already toured the world, and played more concerts than artists 4 times his age. Of course there is also an element of luck and timing in all of this as well, however this isn’t an isolated example. Look at  Picasso, Raphael, Titian, Andy Warhol, etc. etc. for further examples. And you’ll find the same thing time, and time again. All of them spent a tremendous amount of time working on their art and many became apprentices at very young ages to older and more experienced artists.  So no, artists are not born (if anything they are born into the perfect era), they are made through hard work (which most artists enjoy doing, so you don’t have to call it “work”)

For those of you who wish to achieve master status you should be aware that it takes years, and years of work. If you managed to work 8 hours a day, every day, it would take four years to complete (Ironically the same time it would take to complete a Undergraduate degree). However, if you wish to set your goals a bit lower than there is nothing wrong with that. You should work at your own pace, and this course is designed for you to do it whenever you have time. I have set forth the following weekly work schedule as a good starting point for those who wish to dramatically increase their drawing and painting skills. I’ve seen a simple schedule such as the one below work many times over the years. If you don’t give up, or lose patience I assure you that you can reach your goal if you are willing to persevere.

Sunday: 5 Hours (Painting)
Monday: 2 Hours (Drawing from Observation)
Tuesday: 2 Hours (Artist Research/History)
Wednesday: 1 Hour (Drawing from imagination)
Thursday: 3 Hours (Life Drawing)
Friday: Free!
Saturday: 5 Hours (Painting)

Find a Life Drawing class in your community and start going. Take a sketchbook to a coffee shop and sketch the people there. Go to a park and draw trees. Make weird collages in photoshop and make drawings from them. Sketch when you’re on the metro. Sketch in the margins of your notebooks in class. Sketch on napkins at restaurants. Play Exquisite Corpse and other drawing games with friends. Draw your cat, your coffee mug, your boots, people on TV, your hand, your foot, or a corner of your room. There is never an excuse not to draw when we are all surrounded by objects that all have unique traits which, upon examination, are complicated and can increase your abilities. Trust me, if you draw every day, you’ll see huge improvements in your drawings over time. If you’re looking for tricks you won’t find them, you can only work them out yourself by practicing your craft daily.

One movement which I was a part of about 5 years ago was the Painting A Day project where many different artists created a painting every day and posted it to their blogs. For those of you who have blogs I highly recommend getting into the habit of updating them as much as possible. Not just with my assignments which are given but with your own creative visions and sketches. One of the most popular of these artists in the Painting a Day movement was Duane Keiser who since has stopped posting every day but still posts quite regularly small paintings of objects in his house. You can see one of his stop motion videos below, and visit his blog here.

So what else should go into your Artist Statement of Intent? Along with a schedule of how much time you can put aside for painting and drawing every day I’ve compiled a list of common questions which can help determine the path you wish to take and focus your true ambitions. These are questions which you should think about and write about in your blogs as you form your Statement of Intent. It is quite common for these questions to be asked during Foundation Year studies at many art universities throughout the world, and by thinking about them, and answering them, you can begin to reveal exactly what it is you wish to achieve.

Technique/Process
What types of techniques do you wish to incorporate into your work, and what type of processes are required to achieve the desired effect that you wish to crate?

Intent:
What do you want a viewer of your piece to take away upon “reading” your work? What ideas/feeling do you wish to transmit to your audience?

Content/Subject:
What is it that you wish to draw and paint? Are there themes which reoccur in your ideas and work?

Social/Cultural Concerns:
Are you interested in political or cultural concerns in your work? Can your work make a comment about society that can only be transmitted by a drawing or painting? What do you feel is the role of the artist, and do artists have a responsibility to make specific work for a specific audience?

Rules:
Are there any ethical rules which you wish to consider in your work? Do ethical or moral concerns prevent you from creating a specific work? If so, should they be ignored in order for you to realize your creative vision?

Function:
What is the ultimate function of your work, and why is paint the right medium to transmit your message?

Accessibility:
Should you limit the accessibility of your work because you find that self expression is more important? Or is it more valuable to create a painting which can be widely understood by a large portion of the population?

To make it even more clear just exactly what it is I’m asking from you. I’ve included the two following Statements of Intent as examples from which you can draw from. The names of the students are imaginary, and the statements are of my own imagination. I’ve used the common required amount of independent work at the Foundation level which is 20 hours a week for three months. Which is a total of 240 hours. At the BA level this would be increased to 40 hours a week.

Student Name: Leonardo Cattawampus
Class: Painting-Course.Com
Teacher: Jer
Title: Creating Modern Day Americana paintings in the style of Norman Rockwell

First 6 Weeks
Work Schedule: – 20 hours a week.
Sunday: 5 Hours (Painting exercises)
Monday: 2 Hours (Drawing from Observation at a Cafe)
Tuesday: 2 Hours (Artist Research/History)
Wednesday: 2 Hours (Drawing from imagination/Composition) 1 Hour (Editing photos/sketches)
Thursday: 3 Hours (Life Drawing)
Friday: Free!
Saturday: 5 Hours (Painting exercises)

For the next three months I wish to explore the paintings of Norman Rockwell, how they were received by the general public, and what techniques, as well as ideas he used in the creation of his paintings. I plan on making one final painting in which I will integrate both the research I’ve accumulated as well as the techniques I’ve learned about. I also know that Rockwell was a great draughtsman and I must increase my drawing and painting abilities which is why I’ve devoted a large section of my weekly schedule to painting and drawing.

I plan on making preliminary sketches, and also look for modern day American scenes which would be suitable for a painting. Because of this much of my time will be spent outside of the studio in the public where I can both photograph and sketch from real life. After collecting a wide range of both photos as well as on site sketches I plan on incorporating them into a final painting which I plan on executing during the last month and a half.

Work Schedule for Week 7:
Sunday: 5 Hours (Painting exercises)
Monday: 2 Hours (incorporating sketches into composition)
Tuesday: 2 Hours (Drawing from composition)
Wednesday: 2 Hours (Drawing from composition) 1 Hour (reflection upon past successes and failures)
Thursday: 3 Hours (Life Drawing)
Friday: Free!
Saturday: 5 Hours (Painting exercises)

Work Schedule for Week 8
Sunday: 5 Hours (Begin transfer of sketches/drawings/photos to canvas)
Monday: 2 Hours (finish transfer of drawing to canvas)
Tuesday: 2 Hours (Begin Value Study on Canvas in black and white)
Wednesday: 2 Hours (Finish Value Study on Canvas in Black and White) 1 Hour (reflection upon past successes and failures)
Thursday: 3 Hours (Life Drawing)
Friday: Free!
Saturday: 5 Hours (Begin to match colors to value scale)

During these weeks I plan on finishing the composition as well as creating a finished drawing with a value study to use for painting. I wish to continue increasing my abilities as a draughtsman which is why I’ve kept the 3 hours of Life Drawing every Thursday. By the end of the second week the value scale drawing will have been successfully transferred to the canvas. I will then begin experimenting with color values which match those that have been laid out in the value study.

Work Schedule for week 9 – 12
Sunday: 5 Hours (Painting)
Monday: 2 Hours (Painting)
Tuesday: 2 Hours (Painting)
Wednesday: 2 Hours (Painting) 1 Hour (reflection upon past successes and failures)
Thursday: 3 Hours (Life Drawing)
Friday: Free!
Saturday: 5 Hours (Painting)

During this last month I wish to finalize the painting and work out the smaller details. I also plan on looking at my work and comparing it to Rockwell’s and examine how successful I was in recreating a modern day Rockwell. I’m hoping that the research I did on the artist and his time period will be helpful in making these realizations, and be apparent in the final work.

The first problem we run into when looking at the various color wheels which can be used for painting involves something called Tertiary Colors. Tertiary colors are created when one mixes a primary color (Red, Yellow, Blue) with one secondary color (orange, violet, green). Generally these are the colors located next to them on the color wheel.

They often have specific names which can get quite exotic such as Sea Green, or Azure. This is because often designers want to come up with a cool name for a color so they can market it better. For various reasons painters have been taught and told to use the RYB color wheel. A few reasons include the fact that artist materials which are available now used to have toxic compounds in them. Now with the advent of dyes it is easier to synthesize a color such as cyan. The one thing to remember however when using these colors is that dyes will fade with age, while real pigments (such as cadmium) have already stood the test of time for centuries. 

First we will be focusing on the Red/Yellow/Blue color wheel which is most often used by painters. In the color wheel above the Tertiary Colors shown are Yellow Green, Blue Green, Yellow Orange, Red Orange, Red Violet, Blue Violet, and Blue Green. This was widely believed to be standard colors to use for quite some time, and is still often used in Art Education up to this day.

An RYB color chart from George Field’s 1841 Chromatography; or, A treatise on colours and pigments: and of their powers in painting

Back in the 18th century the theories surrounding color theory were cemented in the idea that the RYB (Red/Yellow/Blue) was the way to go. These theories have since changed over the years, however the RYB color model is still often used in teaching painting, and color theory up to this day.

These theories were enhanced by 18th-century investigations of a variety of purely psychological color effects, in particular the contrast between “complementary” or opposing hues that are produced by color afterimages and in the contrasting shadows in colored light.

During the 18th century the theory of the RYB model was furthered by two great thinkers. They were Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and Michel Eugene Chevreul. They were both transfixed by what is called the Psychological effects of color, and obsessed with how our eyes perceive color. One of the main things they observed was how complementary colors (that means they are opposite each other on the color wheel) created afterimages in our brains when they were “burned” into our eyes. They were also interested in why shadows in colored light would create contrasting shadows. You can download Goethe’s The Theory of Colors here as I’ve uploaded it to this site. It is in the creative commons so there it has no copyright and is in the Public Domain.

After Goethe and his treatise on color, scientists moved away from the RYB color wheel and shifted towards a color wheel which most everyone sees every day. This is the Red, Green, and Blue (RGB) model which still dominates a lot of media to this day (Hint: It’s how your TV works). To understand how this color wheel operates we need to go back to the previous lesson, and further examine how different lights makes different colors as opposed to how pigments (or physical mixtures of color) differ.

In the previous lessons we have talked about Additive and Subtractive colors. Forgive me if I wasn’t clear enough before, but these lessons are meant to be sequential, and therefore sometimes I will withhold information so you can absorb it at different rates.

To put it simply, Additive Color is created by adding color. How do we add color? Well, by using light. That’s why if you get up close to a TV set you will see tiny little bars of Red, Green, and Blue. Learning about additive color is particularly important for those who use a computer to create their imagery, as they are dealing with a medium that is essentially based upon the glow of a computer screen.  Now, what happens when that person decides he wants to print out the image on his screen? The answer is that he will need to deal with another color wheel when the image is printed from a computer screen onto a piece of paper! This is because a piece of paper doesn’t glow, it’s reflecting light from a light bulb or the sun.  As we discussed previously, an object doesn’t hold a certain color because it reflects it, it is a certain color because it absorbs all the other colors in the spectrum. Hence the term, subtractive color.

So we, as painters, aren’t painting with light, we’re painting with paint. Hence, we need to use a color wheel which is specific to our needs. Let’s take a look at the two different types of color wheels. Check out the first one below. This is a classical color wheel which utilizes Red, Yellow, and Blue as the primaries.

There’s some nice oranges and violets in there right? Oh? What’s that, you want them to be brighter and more vibrant? Well, then you can use the Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow color wheel below.  CMYK is the color wheel which is utilized in printing, and has generally been regarded as the “true” set of primaries.

But there’s a few problems with this color wheel. Mainly, it doesn’t exist in nature (as in, natural pigments) as readily available as the colors which have been used for thousands of years. However if you want to oil paint with Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow then you can. But if you believe that oil paints will mix similarly to  a printing machine then you’re fooling yourself. As you have probably already learned, different colors and different pigments have different strengths and weaknesses.

By this I mean every color has different properties. In the printing process CMYK(K stands for black) are often used in transparent glazes. For instance, in order to make red in in CMYK printing you first print a tiny little magenta dot, and then on top of that dot is a yellow which is semi transparent. That’s how you make red. Now with oil paint let’s say that you want to paint a giant red object. If you were painting by utilizing the CMYK printing model you’d have to first paint an entire layer magenta, wait three days, and then on top of that you would glaze a bit of yellow on top of it to get your red. So yes, it is possible to paint with CMYK, but the simple answer is that it would simply take FOREVER to finish a painting, because we’re not machines, and paint takes a long time to dry.

So what do we do as painters? Which color wheel should we use? I would suggest that you (that’s right, you) find a palette that you enjoy working with. Limit it to no more than 10 colors, and get used to it. It takes a long time to learn how to properly mix and see color so find a palette that you feel comfortable manipulating. I know for me I like to use Cadmium Red Medium, Cadmium Yellow Medium, Pthalo Blue, Pthalo Green, Alizarin Crimson, Yellow Ochre, Ultramarine Blue, Raw Umber, Permanent Violet Medium, and Titanium White. And that’s what I’ve used for numerous painting tutorials that I’ve done. It’s a hybrid of both CMYK as well as the Old RYB models. With RYB it can be difficult to make a nice brilliant violet as well as green. So what do you do? You buy them And if you want to try to paint with Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow then you can. These colors are generally referred to as Process Blue, Process Red, and Process Yellow. They’re dyes so they won’t last as long (meaning they’ll fade faster) as the classical pigments  but they could be interesting to experiment with. For me? I’ll stick to Cadmiums, Ultramarine, Titanium, and Cobalt. There’s a reason why they’ve been around for thousands of years.

The three main properties of color are Hue, Intensity, and Value.

Hue refers to the color of something, meaning that when we speak of green (for instance) and it’s greeness we are referring to the Hue.

Intensity refers to the saturation or “vibrancy” of a color. In the graph below you can see how Intensity can differ in a color. Intensity of a color can be changed in a few different ways.

1: Adding white to a color will lighten it and also diminish it’s intensity. Adding white to a color is commonly referred to as tinting the color.

2: Adding black to a color will also diminish it’s intensity. This is commonly reffered to as a Shade.

3: Adding a mixture of grey to a color will dimish its intensity. Grey is often employed instead of using white and black (independently) as it can  allow the value of the color to stay close to the original and avoid making a color too dark, or too light.

4: Adding a compimentary color will diminish the intensity. If you don’t know about complimentary color then please check out Color Theory Basics.

Value refers to the lightness or darkness of a color. This was also covered in Color Theory Basics, as well as Creating Value Scales in Color.

Now that we know the three basic properties of color we can move on to some principles of color. Think of the properties of color as the skeleton of what makes a color what it is. But there’s a lot more to color than just it’s measurable attributes! Colors talk to each other and operate as a community. It is nearly impossible to experience a single color all by its self. So that’s the first hurdle you need to get over in beginning to understand color theory. Every color is effected by the colors around it.

But that’s not all! As we discussed in the introductory lesson (Intro to Color Theory) color is also based on subjective considerations as well. For instance, some color is used symbolically such as a bride wearing white at a wedding. This was originally done to show purity. On the other hand Black is generally symbolically worn at funerals. Green is worn for St Patricks day. Red and Green are the colors of Christmas. Orange the color for Halloween. But again, it is important to reiterate that these colors are just common for the culture I come from. Perhaps someone is reading this in Tehran or New Delhi. They will notice that they too have their own ceremonial colors that differ from mine (please comment any ceremonial colors distinct to your culture below!).  So remember that colors can also be used symbolically.

Another consideration is that there are real measurable frequencies and wavelengths for color. These are measured in Terahertz and Nanometres. In this graph you can see the measurable frequencies and wavelengths in the primary and secondary colors.

A very creative artist who had a strong proclivity towards scientific inquiry could surely make some interesting paintings based solely of the physical attributes of color and this measuring system. However, the vast majority of artists will be looking at different properties and principles of color in order to craft their works and the realism (or lack thereof) and mood they wish to transmit to the viewer.

There’s one element of color I’ve been hiding from you thus far. And that is that color exists in two different ways. Color exists as pure sunlight which can be broken up by using a prism and these colors have their own properties, and through artificial means such as pigments, dyes, chemical concoctions, nature, and paint. Now the tricky part we need to reconcile is that without light we obviously can’t see colors. So in the full scheme of things we need sunlight (which holds its own spectrum of color) to shine down from the sky, hit an object on earth, bounce off the object, and into our eyes, where it’s sensed by light sensitive cells, at which point it is transmitted and processed by our brain, and then in our brain it relays the relevant information and associates it with words, feelings, or emotions. “Yes, the ocean is blue. Beautiful”

But it doesn’t stop there. Our brains also have a propensity to try and make sense of the world, and as painters we must walk the line of dealing with illusion. After all, a canvas is a flat two dimensional object and we want to create an illusion of depth, form, and emotion, on a flat surface.  So we must be aware of the properties of color if we want to have a full set of tools to create the illusions we want to on the canvas.

In the following frames we will be looking at some of the properties of color in sunlight. And some of the properties of color as they pertain to how the brain tries to make sense of them.

In 1676 Sir Isaac Newton used a prism to separate and analyze a spectrum of colors. He could see that by analyzing sunlight one could see all of the hues besides purple. We have the same group of colors  in the first image above. Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Dark Blue, Violet. Now, if we take these colors,  and mix them, we will get white. Remember we’re talking about sunlight here! Obviously these colors react differently when they are in a physical form such as paint.

So why do we get white when we mix colors of light, and get brown when we mix paints? Well, the answer isn’t as simple as it may seem. Light works in a strange way so take a second to absorb what I’m about to tell you. Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Dark Blue, and Violet all make up the full spectrum of colors in sunlight. Now, lets say we take one of these colors out, for instance Yellow. So we are left with Red, Orange, Green, Blue, Dark Blue, Violet. What color do we end up with? The answer is that we get the compliment of the color which we removed from the spectrum, so in this case of removing yellow from the spectrum we get violet. Since you all know your color wheels and complimentary colors by now it is quite easy to answer this question time and time again. If we isolate blue we get orange. Isolate Red and we get Green. Think of it like this, by taking out red we are still dealing with Yellow and Blue. Mix yellow and Blue, and surprise! It’s green. The compliment of red.

Now that you’re probably ready to start pulling your hair out let me try to explain why this is.  Our eyes can’t see the  individual hues when combined in the full spectrum . So what you probably were thinking is that things that are red are red because they are absorbing the red part of the spectrum of colors right? Wrong! A red apple is red because it can absorb every color but red! So when we see a red apple it is absorbing  Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Dark Blue, and Violet. It’s reflecting the red color of the spectrum because all of the other colors are absorbed! So what happens when we shine a green light on a red apple? The apple will appear black since there is no red present to be reflected and all the colors are absorbed.

Take a look at the image below. Here I have illuminated this strange furry green ball with a red lamp.  The result is obvious. The ball absorbs most all of the red light and doesn’t have any green light to reflect the “greeness” of the ball. This causes the ball to look black and not green.

So far we’ve spoke a lot about the different properties of color. We have physical properties of color (which are measurable), we have symbolic properties of color, we understand how the properties of color are different for light and paint. In the next lesson  I will speak about the elephant in the room. Our brains, and how they process colors. No, this won’t be another section about emotion or symbolism. In this section it is more scientific as well as a trip into an area of science which still hasn’t concluded just why our brains process color the way that they do.

Before we get into what different emotions can be transmitted to a viewer/participant who is experiencing different colors, it is first important to understand that there is an entire field devoted to studying how color effects our emotions. By studying color psychology we can begin to understand the complex and mysterious world of Color Emotions.

Color Psychology is a relatively new branch of Psychology which deals with how color relates to human behavior and emotions. In the advertising world this is well known, and debated. Why are the golden arches of McDonalds yellow-orange? Why are prescription pills brightly colored? Why do we paint rooms green to calm people?

According to color psychologists these colors elicit certain responses in individuals that can effect their behavior as well as their mood. As a painter working with color one could use the common reactions to certain colors to one’s benefit, and employ similar methods to evoke similar moods in the viewers of our work. Blue tends to have a very calming effect, and in Glasgow blue lights were installed in traditionally violent neighborhoods, which then saw a reduction in the amount of assaults occurring in the area. In Japan blue lights were installed at metro stations where a lot of people had committed suicide. When it comes to red (a color associated with passion) we see the red light districts who are trying to create an atmosphere of sex and intensity. And nowhere is the effects of color psychology at play more than at  theater and music performances where light operators dim and change colors to fit the mood of the play or song being performed.

It is apparent that the stage which was set up above was most likely prepared for a band that plays soothing and relaxing music. This doesn’t take special equipment to measure the physical attributes of color and how it effects us. For whatever reasons we as humans regard blues, dark reds, and violets as soothing or relaxing colors.

At this point you should have a basic understanding of what color psychology is and most likely you also understand what colors are commonly used to evoke certain feelings, behaviors, and moods. The same is true with painting. Let’s take a look at a few famous paintings by Paul Klee and see how he used color in different ways to generate different ideas.

In this painting Klee used childlike colors to further accentuate his ideas about his subject matter. It makes one think of the circus, cotton candy, or a box of crayons. The primitive drawing style furthers Klee’s concept which often was inspired by children’s art.

In this painting (also by Klee) we see simple blocks of color which are painted very loosely and minimalistically. But lets think about what the overall effect of using the colors that Klee chose to use. The deep browns and violets evoke a more serious tone to the work and produce a feeling of relaxation and contemplation. Very different than the colors Klee chose to use in his childlike portrait. A lot of this may seem like a no brainer. You may be thinking “of course Blue is calming, and red is enegetic! Why bother blathering on about it forever?” Well, the reason why it is important to discuss the pasychology of color is because often beginning painters will get caught up in just trying to represent a scene, or image, without taking into consideration the overall impact certain color decisions will have on the piece as a whole.  A shadow can be blue, red, or green. So what you need to ask yourself is what shadow color will best help depict the subject matter, as well as the mood you are trying to create.

As stated previously there is not a set list of how everyone will respond to color. While personal experience and memory can be closely tied to certain colors; overall there is some agreement as to what emotions can be triggered by using certain colors. Below I have made a list of some of the most common associations that my past students have made with certain colors.  While it is by no means an authoratative list on the topic, it is nonetheless obvious that many people make the same associations with certain colors.

Red

Energy, Vitality, Hot, Machismo, Sex, Anger, Rage, Attention,

Yellow

Warmth (sun), Cheery, Happy, Loud, Fun, Sickness,

Blue

Calming,Contemplation, Trustworthiness, Relaxing, Freezing, Sadness,

Violet

Ritualistic, Religious, Plush, Luxurious, Insanity, Strange,

Green

Life, Energy, Relaxation, Soothing, Natural, Boring, Depression,

Orange

Warmth, Cozy, Fun, Young, Natural,

Pink

Beauty, Femininity, Love, Sex, Playful, Weak,

Brown

Natural, Secure, Dirty, Comfort, Raw, Thoughtful,

White

Purity, Clean, Holy, Simple, Cold, Elite,

Black

Seriousness, Death, Depression, Anxiety, Fear, The Unknown, Intellectual, Modern,

Grey

Boring, Dull, Depression, Apathetic, Cold, Lifeless, Neutral, Listless,

Assignment:

Make two paintings describing two different moods which you want to evoke. Use Klee’s square painting as a guide as to how to layout the work. Use only squares of color (which should fill up a small canvas) and try to paint a mood, or atmosphere. If you wish you can choose a mood from the list below.

Accepted

Accomplished

Aggravated

Alone

Amused

Angry

Annoyed

Anxious

Apathetic

Ashamed

Awake

Bewildered

Bitchy

Bittersweet

Blah

Blank

Blissful

Bored

Bouncy

Calm

Cheerful

Chipper

Cold

Complacent

Confused

Content

Cranky

Crappy

Crazy

Crushed

Curious

Cynical

Dark

Depressed

Determined

Devious

Dirty

Disappointed

Discontent

Ditzy

Dorky

Drained

Drunk

Ecstatic

Energetic

Enraged

Enthralled

Envious

Exanimate

Excited

Exhausted

Flirty

Frustrated

Full

Geeky

Giddy

Giggly

Gloomy

Good

Grateful

Groggy

Grumpy

Guilty

Happy

High

Hopeful

Hot

Hungry

Hyper

Impressed

Indescribable

Indifferent

Infuriated

Irate

Irritated

Jealous

Jubilant

Lazy

Lethargic

Listless

Lonely

Loved

Mad

Melancholy

Mellow

Mischievous

Moody

Morose

Naughty

Nerdy

Not Specified

Numb

Okay

Optimistic

Peaceful

Pessimistic

Pissed off

Pleased

Predatory

Quixotic

Recumbent

Refreshed

Rejected

Rejuvenated

Relaxed

Relieved

Restless

Rushed

Sad

Satisfied

Shocked

Sick

Silly

Sleepy

Smart

Stressed

Surprised

Sympathetic

Thankful

Tired

Touched

Uncomfortable

Weird

Introduction to Color Theory

Before we get into exactly what color theory is, and how it works, we need to first look at a broader concern as it pertains to how people experience works of art. This is the correct place to begin an Introduction to Color Theory as we will have plenty of time to delve into all of the principles and physical properties of color later. So, what exactly happens when we look at a piece of art and experience it with our senses?  This experience can be called an Aesthetic Experience. Aesthetics (also spelled æsthetics or esthetics) is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste. More broadly, scholars in the field define aesthetics as “critical reflection on art, culture and nature.”

So what does this mean exactly as it relates to an Aesthetic Experience, and what does this have to do with painting? Well, believe it or not, you most likely encounter and experience many Aesthetic Experiences every day. These could range from looking at a flower and admiring its beauty, to sitting on the couch and watching a commercial. Both of these actions are sensory ones. Since you are a passive observer who is experiencing the world through sensation, and perception. As with any Philosophy there has been much disagreement throughout the years as to what exactly is happening in our brains when we have an Aesthetic Experience.

Kant said that aesthetic experience of beauty is a judgment of a subjective but similar human truth, since all people should agree that “this rose is beautiful” if it in fact is.

Shopenhauer believed that aesthetic contemplation of beauty is the most free that the pure intellect can be from the dictates of will; here we contemplate perfection of form without any kind of worldly agenda, and thus any intrusion of utility or politics would ruin the point of the beauty. It is thus for Schopenhauer one way to fight the suffering.

Oscar Wilde stated that the contemplation of beauty for beauty’s sake was not only the foundation for much of his literary career but was quoted as saying “Aestheticism is a search after the signs of the beautiful. It is the science of the beautiful through which men seek the correlation of the arts. It is, to speak more exactly, the search after the secret of life.”

So before we get into the nuts and bolts of what makes color theory work it is important to first understand that Aesthetics do exist, and the merits and qualities of what makes up an Aesthetic Experience have been debated for quite some time.

A common question regarding Aesthetics is whether or not they are universal, cultural, or personal. For instance someone may have a different reaction to looking at a painting of a rose who has a strong personal memory of the flower. Perhaps seeing roses reminds them of their childhood and cutting them in the garden with their grandmother. In this case it is important to note that Aesthetics aren’t necessarily a rigid set of rules by which one must abide. Rather that our Aesthetic Experiences are also guided by cultural as well as personal experiences. They are more fluid rather than concrete. With this being said it is also important to understand that there are a certain set of rules which have been successful throughout the years in creating a desired response from the viewer. To put it simply, how do we as humans create works of art that elicit certain internal responses in those who view our artwork? And this is where we come to color theory.

As many students on this site have probably already noticed I make a lot of correlations to music as this is an easy comparison I’ve found that many people can grasp. In the case of color theory it is no different. Simply put color theory investigates what elements work in creating a desired effect, much of which is the same as music (listening to music is also an aesthetic experience as it is an experience where someone is experiencing something with their senses that is beyond words).

First take a listen to Mozart’s Requiem while looking at Rubens’ Adoration of the Magi.

Notice how all the notes create harmonies that our ears latch on to? See how the tempo and intensity of the music changes throughout the piece to evoke a certain feeling inside of us? Pay attention to the lack of dissonance, and what type of emotions are stirred up while listening to this piece. Mozart’s Requiem is regarded as a masterpiece not only because of how it makes us feel, but also because of how Mozart interpreted music and utilized his own creative vision to use the tools of music (which had been around hundreds of years before him) to craft something new which struck a nerve with the listener. In painting, one of our tools is color, and how we place our colors on a canvas could be compared to how Mozart arrange his notes on paper.

Now lets listen to another composer who used these same tools of music to create a feeling of dissonance and anxiety. His name was Alfred Schnittke. Take a look at the painting by Jean Michel Basquiat below while listening to Schnittke’s piece and examine what type of emotions begin to well up inside of you.

Now, Schnittke used dissonance, a feeling of chaos, and strange time signatures in his work. Does that makes the work more difficult to listen to?  If so, does this make the work bad? Or is there really such a thing as bad music? And the most important question, could Schnittke have created these compositions without a firm understanding of the rules of music and how to take them apart? Sure, Schnitkke’s pieces aren’t for everybody, just as paintings by Jean Michel Basquiat aren’t for everyone. But what we’re really examining here is just how the use of the mechanics of sound and color are used in order to make us feel a certain way. As we look at the piece by Basquiat we may experience a similar feeling, but here we are experiencing things visually.

Hopefully you have gained an insight into just what Aesthetics as well as Color Theory are, and how to identify the different ways different artists can use the conventions of sight and sound to ellicit certain feelings, and sensations in those who view them.  As we continue on we will be looking at just what are the mechanics of color, and how to use what painters and scientists have studied for hundreds of years and apply them to our own works. It is important to remember however when embarking on this journey that these rules alone will not make “good” paintings. They are just tools, which when combined with finding your own personal inspiration can be manipulated to be used for your own desires in how you want to depict an object with paint, and more importantly, what Aesthetic Experience you wish to invoke in someone else.

These theories of painting come from a German form of psychology called Gestalt which simply states that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. It is often used in both art as well as design to achieve the desired effect. The main points of Gestalt are summarized below the image.

1. Figure/Ground

This is the idea that speaks to the human mind’s tendency to separate figures from their backgrounds. These differences can be furthered by utilizing a number of different techniques which can include contrast, color, intensity, and size.

In the Matisse painting below we can see a clear differentiation between figure and ground. It is also helpful to think of the ground as the negative space around the figures present. Also notice how Matisse utilized contrast, as well as color to make the figures come to the front of the painting, and push the background back in space. In general it is a good rule of thumb to think that warm colors will come forward in space while cool colors recede.

In contrast to how Matisse used Gestalt principles to make his figures stand out in space we can look at the French artist Vuillard who played around with blending the background and the figures present in the image below. Notice how the woman who is closest to us seems to almost dissapear into the background while the man at the door has a sharp contrast against the pattern. Vuillard was playing with the principles of Gestalt here to highlight how our eyes generally view paintings. By making the man at the door seem to pop to the front this creates a tension in the painting that some find desirable.

2. Similarity

This is the Gestalt theory that states that the viewer tends to group together objects which share the same characteristics such as shape, size, color, texture, and value. In the Degas painting below we can see how he employed many different circle shapes (in the form of the hats) in order to create a sense of unity throughout the painting. The hats also have similar textures which help us group them together. Notice how powerful color intensity is and how the hats which are brighter are easily grouped together while the other hats which are darker are a different group altogether.

The principle of similarity can be more easily understood in the following graphic below. Notice how even though all of the shapes are the same color that by changing the shape of the objects we also change how our minds group them together.

3. Proximity

Think of proximity as how close certain elements are in a composition. Proximity can also be referred to as grouping which is similar to similarity. However, there is a difference between similarity and proximity as we can see that the objects don’t need to all be the same size in order to be grouped by the brain. In the Chardin painting below we can see how the apples are grouped together even though they are different sizes. Grouping can be achieved by shape, color, tone, and space.

In the painting below by Degas we can see how parts of a composition can be grouped together by their value. Even though there are figures both in the foreground as well as the background we can see how we group together the darker elements as abstract shapes. In the case of Degas’ painting of The Office this is present in the dark shapes which make up the suit jackets of the subjects present .

4. Closure

As we discussed earlier closure is the idea that the brain will fill in any extraneous information which is not present in the image. This is a common tactic employed by both painters as well as designers.In the image below we can see how a square is created by the negative space.

5. Continuity

Continuity is the idea that the eye will continue to look in a direction in which it is pushed by the forms and shapes present. In the painting below by Tiepolo we can see how our eyes are first drawn to the main subject present which is the man riding a horse holding a large weapon. The weapon is pointing down at a figure which lie dead on the ground. By utilizing the Gestalt principle of continuity Tiepolo pushes the eyes of the viewer to move around the canvas.

6. Symmetry and Order

Symmetry and Order refers to the idea of how balance, and symmetry give the composition an overall feeling of solidity and structure. In Raphael’s painting below we can see how by having a clear sense of symmetry adds to the structure of the entire composition. Notice how the figures aren’t perfectly symmetrical on both sides of the work, however they are still balanced and neither side seems too “heavy”.The larger idea at play here is that viewers want to “read” a painting in a systematic and organized manner. Some viewers who find a painting which is too difficult to read may spend less time trying to comprehend it. While clearly balanced compositions will be more accesible. This is not to say that every composition needs to be perfectly balanced and symmetrical, there are many examples of artists who play with the idea of symmetry and balance and still are quite sucessful. Remember that these principles are not set in stone, and it is ok to break them. The point being that the better you understand these principles the more sucessful you can be at breaking them.

Oil Painting Step by Step

In this painting tutorial I go through a common step by step procedure on how to paint with oils. From the drawing, to the underpainting,  glazing, and final details.

Step 1: Find your source imagery and prepare it for painting. This could include photoshopping various elements in photoshop, collaging images from magazines, taking your own photos to paint from, etc.Then create a grid on your source imagery. This can be done in photoshop, or you can print the photo out and grid it out with a ruler and pen.

Step 2: Create a grid on your canvas which matches the size of your prepared imagery (ratios are ok, so for instance an image which is 5 x 10 could be scaled to a canvas which is 20 x 40 etc.) Mark each line on the grid with a series of numbers and letters so it is easy to find which square you are looking at and how it relates to the image you are painting from.

Step 3: Draw your imagery onto the canvas using a pencil using your grid lines as a guide to help you. If you are wondering why we use a grid, the answer is that it is much easier to manage smaller squares as opposed to larger ones. It also forces you to abide by the predetermined composition you initially created, so basically, it helps you make sure you can fit everything you want to on the canvas.

Step 4: Find large value shapes. Value refers to the lightness or darkness of a color. For this step it is helpful to have a black and white version of the source material from which you are painting. If you have photoshop just take out all of the saturation of the color, if you don’t, then make a black and white photocopy of the image.

Step 5: Paint the large value shapes with the values they correspond to in black and white.(You can use Acrylic paint for this as it dries faster).

Step 6: Once you’ve completed your value study of the painting you are ready for color. Mix the colors you wish to apply to the canvas on your palette (Never mix on your canvas). You can use either opaque colors which will totally cover the value study, or you can use transparent colors and use the value study to help make your shadows.

Step 7:  Paint in the colors you wish to use, and use the value study to see how closely the value of the color relates to the value of the value study. If this is hard for you to see, then just squint you eyes until the color turns into a black or white shade.

Step 8: Make final adjustments and put in details.

Painters often refer to something known as Local Color. So what is it exactly? Well, there is a very simple explanation. Local Color refers to the color of an object if it is unhindered by shadows and highlights. Still don’t get it? Basically it is what the actual color of an object is. Take for instance a Tomato, now most people would agree that tomatoes are red, however that’s just part of the story and the way that our eye perceives colors. In reality if we really examine a tomato we will see all sorts of different tones and highlights. Take a look at the image below and you will notice the myriad of colors which are created just by one tomato. There’s pinks, violets, browns, and reds. Simply put, when painting any object we must consider all the colors and many times it isn’t intuitive to see the light violet colors because of our preconceived ideas about the local color of the object, which is red.

When it comes to painting it is very important to be aware of what the local color of the object is, however it is also vital that we delve further into the more nuanced colors that appear as well. This is even more important when we have multiple objects of different colors placed closely together. The light bouncing off of one surface can create a reflection and influence the surrounding areas. Therefore, if we look at the top of the tomato we can begin to see that the green vine above it is effecting the colors of the shadows as well. For this reason it is very common for painting instructors to say that students need to start examining what colors make up the shadows in the objects they paint. There’s a whole rainbow of color hiding in the shadows. This was most evident in the Impressionists’ works as they would commonly use blues, and even reds in their shadows.

It is the goal of this lesson to get beyond local color and we are going to make sure that there’s no chance it will seep into this exercise. You will be painting a portrait without the use of local color. It is up to you to use your skills in seeing the value (darkness) of a color and by doing so you can still create a believable space which is totally divorced from your preconceived notions about what the local color of the object is. For the first part of the assignment you will copy the painting below and this will give you a feel for how Color as Value works. I’ve included the drawing, as well as the original image (gridded out), and a picture of my palette so you can get a clear look at what these colors look like. Once you are finished with the first painting you will find an image of your choosing and will have to complete a second painting. In your second painting you will once again be looking beyond local color. Really push how intense you can make your colors, and you’ll also start to notice that the temperature (basically how warm or cool a color looks) also influences the way we perceive reality.

1. Source Image from which the painting will be made. Feel free to change the unit of measurement if you wish. One box could easily equal an inch or whatever fits the size of the canvas you are working on.

2. After gridding out your painting surface you will sketch in the big value shapes present in the photo.

3. You will then paint in the value shapes using the value of the color to create an illusion of depth. Disregard what you know about color intensity and local color. Be bold.

4. Remember that your palette should be a representation of all the colors you will use.

5. If possible take a photo of your painting and change it to black and white. This will be an indicator of how good your eye is. The painting should stand up as a black and white image as well as a color one. This is an extremely important aspect of painting. Seeing color as value.

Upon finishing this copy you will be creating another painting on your own in the same manner. Remember to choose an image that has a wide range of values from light to dark.

Color Matching Values

Matching colors to values (the darkness or lightness of a color) is the most important skill to learn when learning to oil paint.  For further information on the topic of color values I would suggest checking out the lesson on Color Theory Basics.

In the painting tutorial video above I go into how to mix different values of color on a palette.  I have chosen to use a painting knife however the same colors could be mixed using a brush.  The palette is glass which has been spray painted grey on the back. I have chosen to paint it grey because this is a very neutral color, and I don’t want the color of the palette to interfere with how I see the colors I’m trying to mix. It is important to remember that colors will interact with each other. For instance a white square painted on a yellow background will appear to  be darker, since the surrounding color is also light. However, a white square painted on a blue background will appear to be brighter since the background is darker.

Once you’ve got a palette with a neutral background you can begin to start making different value scales in different colors. You should already know about value scales as we have covered them extensively in the drawing section of this website. To make a value scale you must first have a guide to go from. So I would suggest making your first value scale in black, white, and greys. Then you can compare the darkness or lightness of your subsequent mixes of color against a black and white scale (this can be achieved by squinting).

If you came here thinking about trying to find what colors match (ie. which colors go together) I’m sorry to tell you that this isn’t something which can be summed up in a succinct manner. There are many factors which determine what colors will traditionally “match”. If you peruse my section here on Color Theory you can begin to examine all of the reasons why there isn’t any general consensus of what colors actually match, and which ones clash.

For this assignment you will have to create your own value scales in 6 colors and Black and White. Red, Yellow, Blue, Orange, Green, Violet. So there’s a total of 7 value scales which you will be creating. Once your palette is full of these colors you will then take a picture of it and post it to your student blogs.

During this lesson you will be learning how to construct and paint a landscape painting. I’ve chosen to begin with painting landscapes because they allow us to utilize all the different skills we’ve been working on so far.  Instead of using “Plein Air” techniques which are very popular today among painters wishing to capture “light” I will be teaching about the structure of the landscape and letting you know about how it works. There are a lot of varying principles which should be taken into consideration. This may seem like a lot to consider but I’m more interested in giving my students a chance to make great work as opposed to praising mediocre work. Let’s first look at the steps involved  and the things we are to consider when composing,drawing, and painting our landscape painting.

Finding a photograph to work from, or learning how to photograph landscapes yourself.

The first step is to find (or take) a photograph from which to work. If you want to find an image from the internet to work from then that is fine. You may want to jump to google images and use the first “cool” image you find. This is not the way to go about choosing a photograph. I would suggest looking for images in the creative commons. You can use this search engine to search the creative commons for images that you can use to create paintings from.  When searching for a photo to paint from it is important to start seeing a few different elements. Take a look at the image below that I found in the creative commons from user Isamiga76 . It’s a photograph of a french landscape.

It’s very important to have an image that has high contrast and a clear definition between the foreground, middle ground, background, and sky. In the following photos below I’ve separated these different elements so you can see very clearly what I am talking about. If you are choosing to take your own landscape photos then having a definitive foreground, middle ground, and background should be one of your first considerations when taking a photo which will turn into a painting.  This gives the image a sense of depth and creates clear markers for our  brains to understand how the elements recede towards the horizon line.

Foreground Landscape

The foreground will contain the brighest colors present in the entire painting. This is because colors lose intensity as they get farther away. This is a scientific fact based upon the amount of water vapor present in the air. You can imagine that as you look farther into the distance you’re actually looking through more and more water vapor. This clouds everything and gives it a cooler greyish blue glaze. I’ve also taken out the cows, and have chosen to ignore the barbed wire in the foreground.

Middle ground Landscape

The Middle Ground will generally contain the darkest values present in the painting.

The Background

The background of the landscape will be lighter than the middle ground due to atmospheric perspective (stuff farther away gets a cloudy blue glaze).

Clouds

Clouds are an important element of any landscape and in this photo they seem a bit bland really. If you want to paint these types of clouds you can review Lesson 15 How to Paint with Acrylics . It is here where I first spoke about hard edges vs. soft edges and when painting clouds we are essentially looking at a large mass of hard and soft edges intermingling. This is the most important consideration to take into account when painting clouds. In the photo above we can see that the clouds closest to the horizon are also the most blurry (soft edges) while the clouds closer to us at the top of the photo have a bit more contrast and harder edges.

For this painting we don’t want to have some weak clouds so let’s try and energize this landscape a bit. I’m going to be adding some different clouds using a free image editing program called gimp. This is a habit you should also get into. If you find a photo, don’t just copy it, try and mix it up a bit to make it yours. Gimp is completely free opensource software and it works great for doing some simple editing to photos. There are also loads of tutorials all over the internet on how to use all of its different features.  The good thing about painting is that you don’t really have to worry about making a perfect photoshopped version of what you want to paint.  It can have clunky collaging and look ridiculous, but you can always clean up any of those edges in the final painting.  As you can see in the photo below. The new clouds seem to make the entire image look brighter. You wouldn’t guess it but  this image is quite dark overall. In the black and white version you can see the values of the colors and just how color intensity can trick you into thinking a bright color is light, in this case the bright green in the foreground is actually quite dark.

Black and white

Now that we can see the values of  our colors we start to have an idea of the sort of color harmonies that are at play. One of the most memorable phrases I heard during art school was that your palette should look like an abstract version of your painting. To further visualize this I have created a value scale of the colors present in the image above. This will serve as a visual reminder as to what colors and values I need to be mixing during the painting process. If you are able to I highly recommend that you create a similar color value scale before you begin painting on your landscape.

Notice the cool and warm colors and the harmonies they create. For your white I would suggest that you never use pure white in a painting as it tends to stand out in an unrealistic manner. Your whitest white should be the light cream color which will only be used for small highlights and parts of the clouds.

Step One

The first step is to make a quick, yet accurate sketch of the landscape. You are mainly looking for the main lines that separate the foregound, middle ground, and background.

Step 2

Next you will paint in the major values with a broad brush. Your goals is to have at least 4 varying tones, but not too many. This is not the point to be concerned with details. You are only looking for large value shapes and painting them with their corresponding values.

Step 3 Blocking in Color

Using a large brush block in the major colors in your landscape. You are going to try and create colors which are the same value as the grey you had previously painted. The reasons for painting the black and white underpainting are now evident during this phase as acrylic paint tends to be somewhat translucent. Your colors in your painting won’t look streaky and white but instead solid and bold. You can also notice how large some of those dark shapes are. This is because we can trim these value shapes down during the next step. At this point you want your painting to be a very quick impressionistic light study.

Step 4 – Details and Cleaning

This is the step where you get to cut away at your large value shapes with a smaller brush. It’s very easy for this step to continue on indefinitely as many beginning painters want to keep refining small details. The result of this can often be a painting that lacks freshness. Remember this isn’t meant to be a finished painting. These are still studies. They should be treated more as assignments, and less as finished pieces.  I would suggest using these same steps to paint other landscapes as well. Practice makes perfect and this step by step process will provide the structure, and framework needed to paint countless landscapes.