LOCAL COLOR : The general color of an object under normal lighting (daylight)
Sky is blue.
Apple is red.
Lemon is yellow.
But: Color is not a property of the object.
It is a result of LIGHT CONDITIONS plus YOUR PERCEPTION. BOTH ARE ALWAYS CHANGING.
From: Victoria Finlay, Color: A Natural history of the Pallet:
“ The best way I’ve found of understanding this is to think not so much of something ‘being’ a color but of it ‘doing’ a color…. I saw what I understand to be transitional color only once, on a journey to Thailand to undertake a ten-day fast. I was feeling good (although I had never realized it is possible to smell chocolate ice cream at 20 meters), and on day nine I was walking through a garden when suddenly I stopped in amazement. In front of me was a bougainvillea bush covered in pink flowers. Only they were not pink, they were shimmering ...” (pg. 6)
Claude Monet:
The color of daylight continually varies as the sun’s angle changes in relationship to the earth... In general... daylight will shift in color from blue in the early morning through white to red late in the afternoon. These changes in turn affect the colors reflected from objects. We nonetheless tend to perceive colors as unchanging, because of our visual memory. A white card will still look white to us, whether we see it under a yellow candlelight or ‘white’ daylight. (color constancy).... Although this mental process is automatic, protecting us from visual chaos, those who choose to be more observant can override it. In search of visual truth, the French Impressionist Claude Monet (1840-1926) observed and painted the exact same scenes - haystacks, poplars along a canal, the face of a cathedral - under many different lighting conditions, documenting the great changes that actually occurred. Discarding the idea that objects posses a certain color, Monet trained his eye to see each moment in its freshness. He stated:
This is what I was aiming at: first of all, I wanted to be true and accurate. For me, a landscape does not exist as landscape, since its appearance changes at every moment; but it lives according to its surroundings, by the air and light, which constantly change.
To observe the effects of light on Rouen Cathedral, Monet rented a room opposite the cathedral and spent months there working at paintings on different easels corresponding to the different times of day.” (Zelanski & Fisher, Color, p.24)
PROCESS:
- Chose a location (outdoors) that you have access to at different times of day.
- Paint this as a landscape 4 times under different light conditions on. Use any style for painting but push yourself to "see" and paint the colors that are there - in the spirit of Monet.
- Start by setting up your pallet with a FULL PALLET OF COLORS.
- Write the DATE and TIME OF DAY in pencil under each painting. (3/17, 1pm)
- Materials: Illustration Board (15x20"). Click here for composition and border sizes. Tape borders to protect them.
CRITERIA:
- PRESENTATION
- CREATIVITY
- LOOKING / SEEING (color!)
- Documentation (see #4 above)