beginninghere

Why the end of a quarter should converge about the same time as a holiday always seemed wrong to me. “You’ll all be playing this weekend,” said my professor. Playing? Nevertheless I was forced to take a break last night. I should have put that large canvas on an easel (never mind that I didn’t have one) to spare my back instead of crawling around on the concrete garage floor.

The assignment this week is to paint a 3×3 canvas of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 23, to a musical score that we deem appropriate and then write a short paper tying the poem, music, color harmonies, and composition together. For those of you who have stood in front of a blank canvas at some time in your life you know this can be somewhat intimidating.

I started with finding a translation of the poem:

As an unperfect actor on the stage,
Who with his fear is put beside his part,
Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage,
Whose strength’s abundance weakens his own heart;
So I, for fear of trust, forget to say
The perfect ceremony of love’s rite,
And in mine own love’s strength seem to decay,
O’ercharg’d with burthen of mine own love’s might.
O! let my looks be then the eloquence
And dumb presagers of my speaking breast,
Who plead for love, and look for recompense,
More than that tongue that more hath more express’d.

O! learn to read what silent love hath writ:
To hear with eyes belongs to love’s fine wit.

–William Shakespeare

then selected the score—Adagio sostenuto from Piano Concerto No.2, Rachmaninoff—which took a few hours, then decided on the color harmony, a tetrad.

Here’s a corner of it:

Another color theory assignment: Paint deep space and colored spheres with proper tints and shades as they should appear in various planes of space.

First I painted the background, cut out white paper circles to lay out where I wanted the spheres to be, drew the spheres, and painted them white.

Next, I painted the required spheres (2 green, 2 white, 2 yellow, 2 orange) and stippled them with a stiff brush to shade them.

I was interested to see how different people approached the project. Most students painted space-type images but one painted a golf course, one a lake scene, and one the coast of Canada all with colored spheres in the scene.

Space is intriguing and overwhelming.

About a year ago I went to the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles with my cousin Steve. This was his first outing in some time. He had recently had brain surgery for a large, aggressive tumor. It was our last visit. Steve went to be with the Lord last fall.

The day we visited telescopes were set up on the lawn in the afternoon so people could take a look at Venus coming into view.

One wing of the museum displayed the planets and on the wall opposite a really huge photograph of space. I wish I had a photo of that. The image represented what you would see in the area obscured by your thumb if you held it up to the night sky. All that in just one “little” area.

Probably the most amazing and beautiful thing to me is that conditions on earth are so well suited for life.

Photos by nikkipolani.

Have you ever taken photos with a lot of punch only to see them print out as dull as cement? Well, that’s about what happened to these. I am turning in my prints to the prof knowing full well that he will say, “Hmm. These don’t quite look like what you emailed me.” For those of you in the design world you know all about the challenges of color and printing. But for now you can see the digital version and, I hope, enjoy the contrasts I saw when I took these photos.

Saturated Contrast

Contrast of a pure color with extreme lights and darks of the same color.
Reds (Plastic):

Blues (Metal):

Simultaneous Contrast

Two complements side by side, or near complements so that one color visually influences the neighboring color. (Think van Gogh‘s Café Terrace at Night)

Simultaneous contrasts are about how one color influences the color next to it or surrounding it, making it appear brighter or duller or even a slightly different hue.

If you look at the two yellow dots in the upper third of the photo you can see how the one over the darker violet area looks more intense than the one over the lighter violet (there is a lime green—forgive me prof—dot in between them.)

I am not sure the next shot is close enough for you to see how the stripes influence each other but in real life they do. Find the same color in two locations and see how it looks slightly different as a result of its neighbor’s influence.

Color Balance Contrast

This refers to the combinations of color percentages that balance a composition.

1/4 yellow to 3/4 violet, 1/3 orange to 2/3 blue, 1/2 green to 1/2 red. How ’bout that?
So here is as 50%/50% for you.

And here is supposed to be a 1/3 and 2/3 comp.

Now that I have been hunting for photos of violet and yellow things I have discovered that the favorite complement is orange and blue, or possibly red and green. Check out some packaging. How many labels or products do you see in yellow and violet?

The wheelbarrows are for Nikki and the guitar is for me. This one is my backpacker’s guitar. Nope, never taken it backpacking. My regular guitar is too big for the photo op unless I had a two story ladder to shoot from.

Complementary Contrast

Opposites on the color wheel (Red/Green, Blue/Orange, Yellow/Violet)

and the little music maker:

Warm Cool Contrast

Red-orange and, say, blue-green paired. This kind of contrast is very friendly, don’t you think?

Doesn’t the blue/green side look “lower in temperature” than the red/orange side?

Warm/cool contrast is all about temperatures.

This week learning about color contrasts don’t cha know. There are seven types and I am to photograph them for class. This small sampling of photos was taken from about 300 in an attempt to capture the theme.

Dark and Light Contrast

Achromatic (Black and White) “No grays please,” says Mr. Prof. That is a challenge! I am not sure then if this one really works since there is a bit of gray in the lower right and the eye mixes the black and white strands whether you like it or not. Minou was a great model for this shot, so sedate and obliging!

Here is a more accurate example, though I still like the look of Minou’s fur.

Chromatic Yellow and Violet supply the most extreme intensity and depth.

Hue (Color) Contrast

Works best with three colors (or in this case two colors and white). Clearly defined saturated hues is the ticket. Usually primaries. Anybody recognize this cover? Its a photo of my French dictionary in honor of Nikkipolani who is visiting relatives in France this week.

In hue contrast colors have to be distinct from one another. The colors can vary in value and intensity but don’t blend.

This kind of color arrangement is supposed to be very emotional. So, how are you feeling right now?