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gracedpalmerPart the first: I have problems with color. I'm bad at picking colors for painting, and often end up with serious mismatchedness. This only gets worse when it comes to digital stuff, because that little palette with millions of colors makes it hard to even see what I'm getting. I always err too far toward the saturated.
Part the second: I've been painting a bit more, and doing some illustration work this week. The illustration is in my nice, safe friends black and white, so there's no worry there. The painting is an egg tempera piece I pick up from time to time (tomorrow I'm going to get some walnut or other drying oil at the market and it'll be tempera grassa, mwahaha) and since I make my own tempera, I'm limited to a small range of colors. This is particularly so given that there are pigments I consider too toxic to use (orpiment, vermilion, realgar) and I'm limiting myself to pigments used before 1600 (no chromes (not great for you), cadmiums (still pretty toxic anyhow), Prussian blue, modern organics, etc). The end result is a much better painting. I'm discovering that I can put together a decent pale European skin tone with green earth, burnt umber, red ochre and a little lead white (toxic but not actually that bad for grownups, and I never eat or touch my face while I'm using it.)
The inevitable conclusion: I should start limiting my palette elsewhere, including on the comp. Since the historical pigments have been working so well, and my head's currently in the 16th century, clearly I should limit myself to these colors. That makes perfect sense, right? So tonight I spent far too much time putting together a palette file.
It's arranged roughly in order of the frequency I should use the pigments (the blacks and whites, not so much), since most of the earth pigments are nontoxic and would have been moderately inexpensive in this period, and the majority of the plant pigments are pretty but prone to fading. They were primarily used under the brighter, more expensive ones to avoid using up the nice stuff. They don't fade as much when used this way. The inner ring are pigments that were either incredibly expensive, extremely toxic, or both. Realgar and orpiment are so toxic that historical artist's manuals comment on the fact and suggest avoiding them. Vermillion's not as bad, but is still a mercury pigment. Ultramarine's not toxic (you could probably eat it) but was worth more than gold at some points because of the labor that went into making it.
It may not be immediately visible on your monitor, but the two blacks are slightly different in tone, and neither is a pure black. One's a little cooler and one's a little warmer. The whites are more visibly impure. This should help the "don't put straight black or white on it" problem.
I have no idea if this'll actually make my art better, but anything's worth trying. I'd feel bad about wasting time, but I did the base lineart for three full illustrations, had a nice sitdown with one of the boythings, sewed one vertical seam on my skirt, went shopping and walked almost two miles today. So it's ok to do something braindead and useless. Tomorrow, it's back to the wordmines!
Part the second: I've been painting a bit more, and doing some illustration work this week. The illustration is in my nice, safe friends black and white, so there's no worry there. The painting is an egg tempera piece I pick up from time to time (tomorrow I'm going to get some walnut or other drying oil at the market and it'll be tempera grassa, mwahaha) and since I make my own tempera, I'm limited to a small range of colors. This is particularly so given that there are pigments I consider too toxic to use (orpiment, vermilion, realgar) and I'm limiting myself to pigments used before 1600 (no chromes (not great for you), cadmiums (still pretty toxic anyhow), Prussian blue, modern organics, etc). The end result is a much better painting. I'm discovering that I can put together a decent pale European skin tone with green earth, burnt umber, red ochre and a little lead white (toxic but not actually that bad for grownups, and I never eat or touch my face while I'm using it.)
The inevitable conclusion: I should start limiting my palette elsewhere, including on the comp. Since the historical pigments have been working so well, and my head's currently in the 16th century, clearly I should limit myself to these colors. That makes perfect sense, right? So tonight I spent far too much time putting together a palette file.
It's arranged roughly in order of the frequency I should use the pigments (the blacks and whites, not so much), since most of the earth pigments are nontoxic and would have been moderately inexpensive in this period, and the majority of the plant pigments are pretty but prone to fading. They were primarily used under the brighter, more expensive ones to avoid using up the nice stuff. They don't fade as much when used this way. The inner ring are pigments that were either incredibly expensive, extremely toxic, or both. Realgar and orpiment are so toxic that historical artist's manuals comment on the fact and suggest avoiding them. Vermillion's not as bad, but is still a mercury pigment. Ultramarine's not toxic (you could probably eat it) but was worth more than gold at some points because of the labor that went into making it.
It may not be immediately visible on your monitor, but the two blacks are slightly different in tone, and neither is a pure black. One's a little cooler and one's a little warmer. The whites are more visibly impure. This should help the "don't put straight black or white on it" problem.
I have no idea if this'll actually make my art better, but anything's worth trying. I'd feel bad about wasting time, but I did the base lineart for three full illustrations, had a nice sitdown with one of the boythings, sewed one vertical seam on my skirt, went shopping and walked almost two miles today. So it's ok to do something braindead and useless. Tomorrow, it's back to the wordmines!
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Date: 2009-09-14 01:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-14 01:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-15 05:41 pm (UTC)