[Fred Flick Stone]

Hello, so here is the first of another tutorial spawned by the last one. Skin tones.

What and how. Well, as I started writing this I realized I left out some important things, mainly, what are the colors used in other ethnic types, so that will come with the other sections of this.

Anyway, here is the first image. And this is what I have to say about it...

The top of the image is the four basic colors that one would mostly associate with in painting caucasian flesh. A yellow, a red, and a cool, either a blue or a green. Also, white is necessary, and if you paint with limited palette, or darker palette, black is also included in toning the image. I did not include black here, I want to omit that hue till we are really ready for it.

The top is a mixture of these four basic colors to get tones, and me getting them. They are devoid of shade, because at this point, we are not concerned with that. We only want skin tones.

The idea of making an ideal skin tone color is rediculous. Skin tones vary so much, from person to person, and art image to art image. If Drew Struzan were asked to paint Harrison Fords head, he would ask which context do you want this to be portrayed? Pictorially(illustrative) or realistically. There is a difference. And that difference tells you whether or not you "should" use straight out of the tube colors or not. ANything goes in flesh tones so long as the tones remain harmonious to the rest of the image, and value conscious to the whole image.

Spooges image of the pirate in a yellow to brown range only is a great example. I dont have the image of I would post it here, maybe someone else can. ANyway, he used a monochromatic palette, all influence is warm, mostly in the yellow to yellow orange range. He dips into all teh chromas of these colors to create a graphically appealing image full of value and full of life, regardless of the abscent colors.

The bottom half of this image is a chromatic scale of these two red and yellow tones, and how they mix with each other. You can work in any of these intensities, so long as the image again, remains harmonious to the whole of the image.

More coming soon...why dont some images post when others do, and there is no difference in image size or the way the naming convention is created?
_________________
RJL

[Fred Flick Stone]

Ok here is part two of Part 1


So now here we have 4 parts to this image.

Part 1-
_________________
RJL

[ChiaNi]

thanks to have you here giveing art lesson. I have learn from you after you show up. thank you so much to share your knowledge.
_________________
Holly sprite

[Fred Flick Stone]

Part 1-sorry, got confused on the buttons I typed...This first part is a monochrome study, with just red. I went through a good part of the value range of red to create the volumes here that read three dimensionally. That is the most important part of any image, reading form. If the form doesnt read well, the image has failed, regardless of its labor of technique.

This image is to prove you can use any colors to get what you need. Now obviously, this would be a special case scenario using this much red. But in some cases, say, in a submarine when the alert lights go up, everything is red. This would work well, with a bit of work adjusting some of the values.

Part 2 is a duotone image, meaning I am using two colors, plus a tint and tone of them to get what I need. That is, in paint, I am also using black and white to adjust teh value range of the colors, using black sparingly so as not to destroy the vibrancy of the colors.

****IMPORTANT****when you paint, as in part two, and you mix tones to get shadows or shade, you mix the correct corresponding value of that area of tones to get the correct color note. That is, if the object is red in the shadow, I need to also paint in red, since that is what color the object is, but the correct value of the shadow. Usually, in the minimalist point of view, or the high key of chroma scale, the values between the shadow and the light only vary by about 2 to 3 intervals of tone, (on the value scale-that is black is 1 and white is 9, or just the reverse depending upon where you went to school) So the red I put down to define the shadow would look a lot like my red head. Then, to make the image feel bound to the background, and you are painting with as many colors as you see in the image, then the blue in that shadow also needs to be mixed with the same value as the red in the shadow, so the value in that particular spot you are painting in does not lose its value intensity. In the green and blue head, I painted swatches next to the head to show what I mean... This is vital as the values are what hold together the form. I will do another visual on this tonight and post tomorrow.

Part 3 of this sheet has to do with saturation of a red yellow derivative of this idea. The bigger oval is painted in base colors that would serve well for a realistic image, while the dot next to it would apply itself in a drew struzan fashio of illustration. Both are equally valid, so long as the values of both hues correspond with each other so as not to distort the end value of the object you are painting.

Part 4 of this page is a bit more in depth, but really important to read about. The photo is any typical reference image. If I were naive to art, I might try using the color picker and grab from each area in the image till I kinda got what it looks like. If I were doing this image as a professional piece, I would have to take some things into consideration. The biggest of these would be the simplicity of the imagery. If we put shadows and light aside, we only have forms to contend with. Form is again, the most important thing in painting. This simplifies the problem completely. Now we see in this diagram, I have four main values. That is what I am trying to see. The big values, not the details at all. Now, I omitted some details, but they will again become part of the four big values if I know how to keep a center of interest and keep consistantly present in my image, the big statement I intended to start with, that is, these four main values.

From all the artists I have learned from, the one thing most of them say is keep the image simple, keep the values simple, no more than 5, no less than 3. Less than three, the image becomes a graphic representation, go more than 5, and chaos ensues. This does not mean your image cannot have many colors. It can have all the color in the world so long as the value make up of the image remains in tact.

Now, light and shade add four more additional values to the overall image, because you have to have some sort of toner for all these four big values in this image. But so long as the first four values are solid and do not dissapear from the painting as you progress in your work, it should still remain the way you intended it to in the first place. I will do more on this in a portrait tutorial.

The rest of the tutorial I did was involving modelling the form of the womans head. As long as I know my initial four colors, I can use those to mix my other colors in the image, and the colors mixed will retain a unity and strength in the piece, rather than adding a new color everytime you need to paint a new area. Her head was painted with the four local colors I chose for my image, I used slightly more saturated versions of those colors to mix with the correct corresponding values. In the end I got a similar feel, less grayed out, as I know that all the gray in the image is there only because of the print quality of the image. I added maybe too much light in the shadow tones, but it still works well in form.

Then I tweaked the colors of her head to show that it can be viewed in other colors as well as long as, again, the values hold up and the big statement remains simple.


That concludes part 1, Part 2 will be posted tomorrow, continuing on with this idea of flesh tones, and it will involve more with ethnic types, and other palettes, and how to manage yourself with a palette dealing with digital...


Fred

Part 3 of this page
_________________
RJL

[-HoodZ-]

hey alright! i always had problems with skin tone....this is a must link to Sumaleths archive

[Fred Flick Stone]

And remember, its not what red or yellow, its are the red and yellow colors harmonious to each other? is one grayer than the other, then gray them both, or color them both more intenesely till they feel right together, you should be able to decide this before you start painting...
_________________
RJL

[Fred Flick Stone]

Here is a sub tutorial on Chroma, based upon a mentor of mine I am learning from...There is a lot here to chew on, and I have no visuals currently to it, but it will help in grasping the concept...

Thanks

Fred


The Tutorial On Chroma
Art went through three distinct periods or transitions(painting in art that is) The first was the primitive form of coloring, or each form was filled with its local color, and the shadows, if there were any, were colored with the same color also, just a bit darker. Look at a lot of the old religious paintings from the 12 and 13 hundreds. Then, Leonardo Da Vinci realized three dimensions, perspective, etc. and added a whole new dimension to art. Now we had foregrounds, middle grounds backgrounds, we had many characters in situations doing things either religiously or mythological. As a result of all this added depth, a system was needed to control all the parts. Thus, the brown palette. Since they didn�t have manufactured colors and synthetic colors the way we do now, they used what is considered a minor key of chroma palette, that is, earth tones and subdued colors, not to mention, when you work with colors like yellow ochre, burnt sienna, etc. missing them creates even darker tones, or less obvious colors. So it all goes dark. So, umber, which is Latin for shadows, was used to define all the dark areas. Now, this is not the way color works, and not the way the retina sees color, but it was a convention that helped tie all the parts together in a painting. So, up until Claude Monet, color was not really color, it was considered a tonal approach. Brown was an artist�s friend. Not to mention also, all the artists would still work with very solid forms, almost cut out of their environment, with exception to the shadows, and the obvious shadows. They would melt into the background. But the art still had a lack of freshness.
Velasquez was the first to break this convention by painting direct. Vs. underpainting the whole image in the brown scheme first. That is, when a painting was set up prior to Velasquez, it was done in a monochrome study first; the looks that resemble a highly rendered burnt umber pick out painting. Then they would apply glazes of color over the monochrome, building up color over the tones without having to mix the transitional tones. Velasquez and Frans Hal painted directly, melting edges into bigger tones, melting tones into tones, etc. A natural feeling had been realized. But Velasquez did something more, he also added color, or depth into his shadows. Realizing what really is seen in reality. This is why he is considered as great as he was, he elevated art, much like Leonardo, and Blake, who I didn�t mention, but was the founder of symbolic composition in an informal sense. Velasquez also, opened artist�s eyes to more, and the next generation beyond him was what was called the impressionist period.
This was the last major wave in art that totally realized the full potential of the retina. That is, color, color, and color. The sun is so powerful; you cannot deny the eye sees lots of color. Too much. But, given the time period, Monet, the founder of the impressionistic movement designed color in such a way that, what was under the forms no longer mattered, what was important was how surfaces were viewed when light hits them. If outside in the woods, shadows are green because of the refraction of light from the green forms. Monet realized bounce light, realized that shadows need to be transparent, and not in the sense that you see the surface you are working on underneath, but transparent in the sense that you can see volume in them. This was what the brown palette artists lacked more than 90% of the time.
Cezanne furthered the impressionist�s idea of color, by realizing that yellow is the mother of all color, and is the most potent. Purple, the direct opposite, was the darkest, and could substitute black with a color and still make it feel black. If you go outside, it is hard to find a black anywhere, with exception to man made objects. But even then, on a bright day, you can�t tell if the object is black or not unless you peer into the shadows. Because the black surface acts like a mirror, picking up the local colors around it. IN the short of it, this was, and still has been the last great art movement. Now, the impressionists beyond Monet, Manet, Degas, Cezanne, Sargent, Sorolla etc. used black, but as a recovery color where their colors failed them. This was a result of a lack of understanding what colors to use and why use them.
And now we are in the here and now. Anything goes because of the discord in the art movement, and a lack of fundamental training. But there still exists schools that teach certain things. In Spain, the schools still teach color, as it was in Spain where it began. Actually, in France, but the two share the same land mass and the same artists. In France, they still teach high rendering. In the Slavic countries, Russia and China, they teach impressionism, in the real sense. But there is nothing new to add to the artists tool set that hasn�t already been truly realized.
What is sad is the lack of masters who can convey the true meaning of these things.
When I hear artists say make your shadows transparent, most of them don�t know what they are talking about, other than this concept of transparency. But if you look at great paintings, the shadows are opaque. Well, oil is an opaque medium, if you make something in the painting too faint that you see the ground through it, you have broken the convention and failure can be eminent. If you understand that shadows being transparent mean that the shadows have also been realized, and not just graphically blocked in, then you will have a better success at producing the believability you are looking for.
High key of chroma paintings are not always fun to look at, nor do I want to paint them all the time. But when I see something colorful, I want to represent it in its true sense. I want the options. The options can be found if you know how to make flexible your color choices. But there is more to this also. There is the contrast key. Caravaggio painted in a high key of contrast, and sacrificed the color for it. If you put a high key of contrast in a painting with a high key of chroma, the painting fails. Too much competing for top dog and no formal organization has been realized. SOrolla was a high key chroma painter, so a full value range or high contrast has been sacrificed. When you look at a sorolla painting, you can see that they average out at a very light value, with just a few accents to identify fullness of form. Look at the kids on the beach paintings, they were his greatest paintings in a high key realization, or they were his most successful with this theory applied. If sorolla wanted big contrast in values he would have to sacrifice color. If full chroma, contrast needs to be sacrificed.
The scales go

Chroma-color
--High key-pure color, that is real yellow vs. yellow ochre, real green vs. sap green etc. omit black from the palette, and never mix complements as this creates a grayish effect, and high key has no grays, and no earth tones, but implied grays and implied earth tones via mixing on the canvas, but not on the palette, not blending on the canvas, but missing�look at Cezanne degas and manet for this you will see bits of color in colors, this is the broken color mixing theory.
--Middle key-the earth tones. This is the palette that most artists use, but with a lack of understanding, they mix the colors into a low key color scheme, lack of understanding. Yellow ochre, Venetian red, the umbers, the sienna�s, sap green, black�these are middle key chroma colors. Black is in this palette
--Low key-This is where gray reigns supreme. There is no color in a colorful sense. Rembrandt painted this way. This is where your colors become so subdued you no longer recognize them as a specific color. That is, if you make a blue in low key, it resembles more of a navy blue. If you make red, it looks more like maroon, but even deeper in chroma. Yellows look like really nappy green booger colors...heh In this color scheme you actually mix the color you are looking for, and mix a gray value with black and white, blend them together to get a true gray value. You don�t necessarily rely upon mixing the complements alone, as this will dislocate your painting with many isolated spots of new colors. When you mix complements, you create a new color, that discords itself from the rest of what you are applying as true mixtures. Mixing the corresponding gray value helps unify the color you are creating back into the whole.

Contrast-light and dark
--High key of contrast-the furthest range you can create. This goes from pure white to pure black, or close to pure on a value scale, it reaches from a 1-9 intervals
--Middle high key of contrast-a smaller range of value intervals, but in the high value range. That is, the values will range from a middle to a bright, but not much dark added. If we look at this contrast in a value scale, it would occupy the lighter end of the value range. If a high key of contrast spreads from 1-9 intervals a middle high key of contrast goes from 1-6. 1 being white, 9 being black.
--Middle low key of contrast, 6 intervals, but in the low value range, that is, from 4-9 on the value scale.
--Low key of contrast-this can happen anywhere in the value scale, but your values only spread about 3 or four intervals at most. Painting outside on a foggy day would produce this effect, or painting in a candle lit room at night not painting directly into the candle light would also produce this look. So we could have a low key of contrast in the lights, occupying 1-3 on the value scale, in the middle, occupying 4-7 or at the low end occupying 5 or 6-9 on the value scale.

The two, contrast and chroma work hand in hand. You cannot use black if you are painting in a high key of chroma. It kills the effect. You cannot have a high key of contrast and a high key of chroma simultaneously. These rules are important to help you grow as a colorist. Now if you paint only monochromes, you can toss all this out the door, then you are just drawing and need to apply drawing principles to this.

Odd Nerdrum paints in a middle high to low key of chroma. He uses just earth tone colors. To add depth, he paints his paintings in stages. He let�s layers dry, and then adds more layers on top of that. He works with volume of paint, much like the Venetians would paint like. This is not a direct means of painting, but adds a lot of volume to his paintings. That is why he gets vibrancy. If he were to try and do what he does painting directly, he would have a terrible time trying to retain the vibrancy in his paintings.

I don�t want to ever be coined as a brown palette or tonalist. I don�t see murk, I see vibrancy. But I don�t see garish. I foresee myself painting in a middle high key of chroma, to a middle low key of chroma. What I do know though, is I can paint a colorful painting, I can paint a high contrast painting, I can paint a tonal painting, and I know I can because I understand the flexibility of how to get a result. We always say there are no rules, but there are conventions that are universal, these comprise what we consider rules. These really do exist, from the types of lines you can draw, to the colors you use, to the compositions you create. There is a formal approach to making sound decisions, once these are realized and practiced, that is when we become the Leonardo�s, the Monet�s, the Velasquez�s, and we try to break the conventions to find something else, if that is in us to do so. SO many people are content just doing, with a theory in mind so they don�t have to think anymore. Does Kinkade come to mind when thinking this??? Hmmmmmm

Lastly, controlling the composition. The value keys I mentioned a bit ago are the key to a unified composition. I mentioned in the drawing from the master�s class that there are four main values in every successful painting. The range is from 3-5 values, 5 starting to lean on the chaotic side�4 being ideal. And this is true value, not colors. You can have a hundred different colors in your image, hopefully not, but you can. But some of the objects you are going to paint, regardless of their color, have value. Some of these objects with similar value but dissimilar colors can be and should be grouped together to control the painting. Once these four values are realized, you can further control what you want the viewer to look at by adjusting the four values till a key has been established.
Lets say you have a still life with a beige sheet underneath, a few pine cones, a piece of bark and some eggs. The bark is very dark, the pine cones also. The eggs very light and the sheet a middle value. IF you were to paint a picture of this, and stick with what you see, you would have a discord of values, as, the dark of the bark is just as contrasty with the beige sheet as the egg is with the sheet. Too many jumps in values amongst the players in the painting to be created. Now, if you know how to adjust values, via the chroma spectrum and the value keys, you can control the subject and create a compelling image. SO, if we were to tone the beige sheet down in value, bringing it closer in value to the bark and the pine cones, the eggs are pushed further away from the rest of the canvas, making them the subject to look at. If the eggs are dulled down, they harmonize closer with the sheet, and all of a sudden the dark objects become the focal point. I know these examples seem hard to understand without visuals. I will make some to accompany all this. There are so many different ways to make a successful image, but if we don�t know they exist, we are stuck copying exactly what we see, and the job as an artist is to create images, not Xerox reality. Photos substitute the art at this point�

The meaning behind all this, freedom, freedom to make your statement. When you first look at something, and it catches your fancy, you have to, when sitting down to paint it, evaluate what it was that made you like it in the first place. Psychologically, there are only three things that give what you are looking at that special something that makes you like it, the shape, the color or the texture. When you go to paint this �thing�, you need to keep very clear in your mind what it was that attracted you to it in the first place, and make this the focus of your statement(painting). This requires sacrifice. If it is the shape, you want to sacrifice the details. If it is the color, you sacrifice the volumes for the colors, etc. This is the key to making your statement as strong as you can make it. The basic underlying statement should never fall apart, or the painting is a failure.



More about the things we learn:


Another tidbit I happened upon is the useage of high key chroma.

When we are painting in a high key of chroma as opposed to a middle or low key of chroma, we are not painting a painting about value anymore. We are painting a painting about clarity of color. You can throw contrast out the door. We are now more concerned with just finding the purity of the color we are looking at, in the lights and in the shadows. The difference will still get us form, just not to the contrast we may be viewing it at.

If we had to break it down mechanically, and I swear not to do this in my work, but for learning, we need to break it down in this fashion, logically, or there is too much gray of a gray area of subjectivity felt, rather than objectively learned.

The chart



High Key of Chroma ------- Low key of contrast ---- a value range of about three
Bright, mostly pure colors intervals in the value scale

Middle Key of Chroma ----- Middle key of contrast ---- a value range of three to five
Earthtones, the typical palette for most painters intervals on the value scale

Low Key of Chroma ----- High key of contrast ------- full value range of the value scale
Earthtones subdued with black and white, very little obvious color is present


High Key of Chroma � only white as a toner
Exemplified very well by Sorolla, Goya, Manet, Asaro

Middle Key of chroma � the influence of some graying from both black and white
Exemplified very well by Sargent, Corot, Velasquez, Frans Hal, Bougereau, Turner, Zorn

Low Key of Chroma � the influence of total subduing of color, in the brights, lots of
white; in the darks, very little observance of obvious color muted
with both black and white
Exemplified very well by Caravaggio, Rembrant, Titian, David, Phil Hale, Sargent, Zorn


These are great examples, but not all of them. Start looking at the artists you are influenced by and see if you cant find this scale in their work. It will help you achieve more of that kind of look, that of the artist of influence, if that is what you are aiming for.

EDGES


Edges are a tricky thing, but must also be deliberately maintained. There are a few ways to paint a painting, with all hard edges, all soft edges, or a subtle variation of both, and I mean very subtle. There are interesting devices artists use as a mask for their edge work, more on that in a moment. The problem with paint mediums, each has its own properties, causing the handling of edges to be a fairly difficult process. Since we are talking mostly about the usage of oils here, we will only focus on the oil properties. Oils tend to go down with quite a sharpness to them. The problem with the medium, it stays wet for a long while, and if you are painting alla prima, or fresh onto the canvas all at once, every time you add more paint, you soften those edges that looked so crisp in the beginning. And, artists, na�ve ones, tend to believe everything must have some blending to it, otherwise, why would the medium not dry so fast? Naivety again, as the medium doesn�t dry quickly because of the properties the paints are mixed with, and, back in the day when paintings were painted on a much grander scale, for churches, parliament, etc. the painter could not tackle the entire subject instantly, thus, an oil was added to the paint to keep it wet for a longer period of time. Nowadays, we still use all these old mediums, thinking in new ways about them, mostly because their original intent has been lost for so long. But that missing information is what keeps people from objectively understanding what they are working with. Well, there is something to be said for naivety, it certainly makes artists try things they never thought possible, because limitations are not established prematurely, and under the assumption that these limitations are the end all be for that particular medium.
Things should be learned for what they are first, so that a total understanding of what it is all about is established early on, then, let it all hang out baby!!! Picasso is a prime example, so is NC Wyeth. They could easily handle the realism of an academic approach, but were bored with it and tried new things, all with a sound academic meaning behind the experiments. You cannot escape learned knowledge once it is engrained intuitively. But you can break free of the chains if you have a courageous personality, and a sense of adventure that will allow you to breach the norm�It is the lack of understanding that makes so many artists invalid in their work, according to the norm of what academic art has established in the western world. Regardless of the power in the message, so many art critics bash many a work of art simply because the �traditional� way has not been upheld. Many people ask for comments on their work, and when they are hit from the academic side, which is probably not where they wanted your comments to hit, but it is the foundation of art, they are stricken with a pain in the side, and defend themselves like a trapped wolf. Many art teachers have to calm shot nerves, or crushed egos because what comments a teacher makes are not what approach mentally many artists are creating images from. They are under the banner of emotion, action, and such, the art school is there, and the art teachers job is to train the academics of the art. The two always seem to clash because they are so different. It is the lack of understanding, and possibly the instructors lack of explaining, what the comments are made for with the art being depicted in the school, namely models and still life paintings, etc., is a conduit, a satellite of sorts, that helps send messages to the receiver, the student, from the point of origin, the teacher of the knowledge, or the keeper of that knowledge. If the students had this understanding, they wouldn�t defend their mistakes so much.


Ok, off the beaten path, back to edges�

There are four useful edges to remember, actually seven, here are the seven, and I will weed out the four:

Hard
Firm/Hard
Firm
Soft/Firm
Soft
Lost/Soft
Lost

The four we are concerned with are:

Hard
Firm
Soft
Lost

Just like the value scale consisting of 9 values for the artist, 9 recognizeable values, weeding them down to 3-5 for a paintings sake, thus we need to do so for the edges as well. In fact, everything we use in art is a small increment of what we really learn in the art field. Art is about sacrifice, the best art has the best useage of sacrifice, from edges, to colors, to values, to details, to textures, etc. We sacrifice many things to get other results that may be more profound to the statement of that particular piece of work.

In painting with edges, you want to harmonize your image with these edges, if you use hard edges in the work, make all your edges hard to a certain degree in the forms, and your shadows sharper. This will help retain a unity for the piece. If you work with soft edges, all your edges should display a certain softness quality within them, including the all mighty, hard edge of the center of interest. If it is too sharp, it will fell out of place, or too focal. If lost and found edges are used, retain this quality throughout the entire image, everywhere, including the center of interest. Now, like chroma, we can invade one edge quality with another as long as we do it with careful observation, and objective deliberance.(need a word for this) That is to say, if we paint an all over firm edge painting, we can have a few soft edges creep in, in fact, we do need them to some extent to better identify forms, but we should not ever let them become arbitrary. Use them deliberately in their correct places, and they will enhance the overall quality of the painting, not break up the harmony. Sargent, Zorn, Sorolla, Richard Schmidt and of course Velasquez are some of the best with edges to look at for inspiration. There are many others, but I would start here with these, as they are documented as the best, and it is very apparent in their body of work.

Edges can be fudged with, but if there is fudging, again it needs to take place all over. For example, Oleg Stravoski paints with flicks interrupting the edges of his shapes. This would look bad if it were left for one spot in the painting, but he uses this device all over the painting, strategically of course, and the device works wonders. If a palette knife is involved, it would work better if the majority of each shape was edge designed with a knife, as knife and blade in the same painting can throw off a harmony instantly. The paint should be applied in thicker abundance with the brush if the knife is used, and the paint is layered on in volumes as the knife has a tendency to do.

We need the edges of a painting to start off clearly, only in the beginnings of our learning since we are after form first. Once all the objects are blocked in as the forms that they are, then the shadow pattern, and cast shadows are mapped in over the top of the objects we are painting. Keep these edges firm, do not lose the shapes you found to begin with. Once the shades are painted in, then comes the observation. Look at the objects you are painting, and look for where the edges are lost more than found in the shadow patterns, this will explain the types of volumes we are looking at. Fudge your edges till they are appropriate for the form. Back off from the painting and look at how much we have described in so little detail. The only thing left now is to add the accents and highlights and we are finished. The accents should again be deliberately placed, as they describe the portions of the form less lit directly, and indirectly, further separating our value range usefully. The highlights do the same thing and a bit more. The highlights explain the surface quality we are viewing, from a glossy surface to a dull surface. If we look at a highlight on an apple for example vs. a porcelain vase, the highlight quality is strikingly different. The same does apply to the accents. We will see them in various values and volumes depending upon the sheen or matte finish of the surface we are viewing. With a few simple, well painted volumes of value, applied shadows with careful observation to their relative value to the light side, a few well placed accents and highlights, more can be achieved, with a greater simplicity and clarity of idea.

Finally for now, edges vs. key of contrast-when painting a minor key of contrast painting, you do not want to blend the edges much. If you do, since we have such a limited value range, we will lose all sense of form. When painting in a high key of contrast, there is a greater chance for more blending, as we have such an extreme range of values, that there is nothing really important that we would lose by blending more, in fact, it adds more volume by adding additional values that weren�t there originally. Blending not only softens an edge, it ramps up the number of values we are seeing, by adding in other values within the mixture of one paint hue vs. the other.

As Sebastian says over and over, we are rich people in our color choices, but very poor in our values, use them sparingly.

Edges are a tricky thing, and really should be saved to for the end of the learning curve, as form and value (and eventually hue (color)) are far more important to understand.
_________________
RJL

[ZippZopp]

wow! lots and lots of info to take in! thanks so much for putting the time in to put this together!

[Malachi Maloney]

Holly shite that's a lot of typing.

Pretty much got my skin tones looking how I like em, but there are some excellent tips in here. I'm sure tons of folks will find this helpful.... Very cool.

Good stuff Maynard.

~M~
_________________
l i q u i d w e r x

[oDD]

wow, your are writing them faster than i can read them and understand. Thank you very much, will try to learn as much as i can but i think i'm too sucky sucky to be able to use this knowledge in the near future, anyway will practice till i can come up with something decent.
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portfolio | art blog

[oDD]

(c) Craig Mullins


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portfolio | art blog

[Andromeda]

Arrghh !!!! THANK YOUUUU !!!!!!!!!!!!!
*Saves thread as favourites* ... when this tutorial is finished i wll save it in my hd ...
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�This be my website�

[Anthony]

Goodness...You and Spooge are like the instruction I never had :] I know I speak for everybody when I say we all appreciate these efforts more than you can understand. Its like giving a kid a pair of glasses so he can see the chalk board.
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-Anthony
Carpe Carpem
http://www.anthonyfransella.com

[Andromeda]

[AliasMoze]

Aargh! Brain...can't...cope....must...re....read....

[Max]

Oh wow! Thank you very much.
I have the same thoughts as Anthony....

This is so nice!!!!!!

[themagicpen]

My god man awesome tutorial !!!!!!!!!!!

[Rinaldo]

man, you talk to much. as if I'm gonna read all that. have to wait for the weekend
:DD

very glad to see you doing this again dude. awesome.
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Dailyscribble

[juhis_r]

Ron, thnaks a lot!

I haven't read it through yet but I have leaved it and seems like there really are SO MANY essential material that it tooks a time to internalize.

I will read it and give more feedback for you.

And try to find out some pointing out questions...

- Juha
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J.p.
http://paint.at/plumsgfx

[Fred Flick Stone]

First off, Rinaldo, glad to see you again...one of my favorite sketch artists...

Thank you for all having a desire to read this stuff, I have a lot to impart, and I cant do it all at once, but eventually, I will get it all out in type and off into your hands. I never got good information, now that the web offers this to us all, I am taking advantage of it for those who are starting this art thing now, and have the web as a great instructional source.

Anyway, I will keep posting more to this thread, yesterday I had domestic issues to deal with that kept me away from work and the forums. I will try and update more info in this link today, if I can, i am leaving this weekend for four days and will be gone for a bit from the forums, I would like to have the rest of this tutorial posted before then. In the meantime, questions, confusions, etc. post them here. I will get to them, maybe not by the weekend, but I will get to them. Alright, gotta get back to the grind.

Fred
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RJL

[ChiaNi]

thank you thank you so much. I read them all. need try the right way to paint first. I am happy can live in the same time on earth with you.
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Holly sprite

[starglider2]

Am i doing something wrong here or are the pictures blocked in this tutorial ? I can't see any ubb linked pictures...

These tutorials are veryvery nice
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[Torstein Nordstrand]

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[Fred Flick Stone]

Calling Immi-if you can please, just for these tutorials, could you host them for a short duration, and I will be forever indebted to you...this free web space shyit is rediculous...I need to get a real host...MadSamoan, what is Toms email address again? Mr. Nippletwister? heh anyway, help, I cant afford to upgrade my site again, and I hate that these daggon images aint around. I have another section to post today, but looks like I cant....dag


Fred
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RJL

[themagicpen]

Ron use that site Spoogy uses ... http://www.pixeltwisters.com/

[Fred Flick Stone]

Mr. Magic, thank you....calling him now....

Fred
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RJL

[juhis_r]

Hi, Ron!

I want to keep up to bother and bomb you with my questions...

Here is a painting by mixed media. I started this one about three months ago but I got it finished last week or so... after my scanner ( max. A4 size ) gratified to my wishes to work. Original size is A2 and beause of that I had problems with scanning process. I had to scan it in four different parts and join the parts together after that. Yep.. I actually finished this painting after reading this tutotial. I got many tips and specifications. Thanks again.. you better than many art references I have found.

Okay.. what do you like about the flesh tones here? I think the contrast between bg and Frodo itself is quite big but I wanted to get him as the subject on canvas. I also noticed after scanning and closer inspection that there are some defects in lighting and shadows. Bad case. Anyway. I used those same colors as the flesh tones from some I told you some day at another thread. Actually there were two basic tones: chrome orange and straw-coloured yellow. And also white. On those, I used raw sienna and some rose pink + darker tones. That's it in a short time reporting.

So could you give some feedback if you have some time, please? I would REALLY appreciate it. And others here. Tell me what do you think about the painting as well?

Well, nothing more for now... thank you.



- Juha
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J.p.
http://paint.at/plumsgfx

[Fred Flick Stone]

cool image. first, let me say, when I work big , I dont view it big on screen, I look at the painting, while I am painting it, at a very small size so I cant get caught up in details. Then I view it up close to get the bugs out of the brushwork...just to clarify that.

I have many paintings that I have to scan in pieces also, kinda sucks, but once you learn how to do it, you dont worry about how to scan something ever again.

ALright, on to your questions...the painting has taken too much black into it, and that black is killing any vibrancy the color has to offer...THis is with colored pencils, no? Colored pencils can be deadly if you start with black first. WHat I would do with the art, I would start with a nice really light line drawing, one that would dissappear when I put anything else even barely over it.
Then I would begin filling in each area with a base color, and I mean color, not gray of anysort. Really light, as light as it can go to be erased if necessary. Then add more really light layers on top of one another till you get a really well established build up of colorful value. Then, in the end, if black is still necessary, go really heavy and drop in those blacks...

the drawing is really well handled, and the composition totally works well, but the colors are really fighting with all the good points.

I am going away for 5 days, when I return, I will post a paintover I did of this, I hope by then my site will be back up and running again.

Take care and work on another one, maybe a small corner of this composition, redraw just a part of it and try repainting again with colored pencils in a different order than you use, that is, not black first. I think you will be amazed with the results.

ALright, gotta fly outta town, see yall in a week...


Fred
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RJL

[Duckman2]

People like Ron make my day. It is so hard to find a teacher that can communicate this kind of information in a clear way. The biggest problem is that alot of the people that are teaching either don't really know what they are talking about or are just poor teachers. They seem more interested in the fluffy side of art and "freeing your mind". It just feels good to see knowledgeable proffesionals like Fred taking time out of their busy lives to help rebuild the huge gap in art instruction that exists today.
Thanks Ron

[root88]

Thanks for the great lessons. I think it would help me a bit more if there were more images to view with each section. If anyone wants to put anything together, I would be happy to host it on my web server.

With Mr. Lemen's permission (or from Mr. Lemen himself), please email me whatever tutorial/lesson(s) that you would like hosted.

[email protected]