PAINTING CLASS: Project 2: Exploring Color Contrast

The images shown below, illustrate the specific Amish quilt form known as Sunshine and Shadow. These quilts demonstrate a composition with an intense core, or focused center. From this diamond-like center, are a series of interchanging colors that radiate in concentric geometric groupings. Surrounding this mass of colors, will be a wide, solid border, that contrasts with the core. The resulting effect is that the diamond, with its multiple colors, can seem to vibrate and come alive, within a more static frame. This frame will often be anchored and set into another, thinner border with patches of color at each corner. The entire composition results in a meditative harmony in which geometric form and color contrasts achieve a balanced relationship.

Consider these examples:

For your next project, you will explore color saturation and contrasts between light and dark. You will create a response to the Sunshine and Shadow Amish Quilt composition, in an expression of both color contrast and geometric shape.

Some terminology {

-Value (sometimes called tone) is the darkness or lightness of a color.
-Saturation (sometimes called intensity or chroma) is the amount of pure hue in a color, its vividness. Colors that are unsaturated are grayer than pure hues. The purpose of this exercise is to work on strategies to control degrees of value and saturation.

When dealing with light and dark contrast, consider both light and dark in terms of the relationship of hue as found in the primary, secondary and tertiary designations of your color wheel, but also in terms of mixing both white and black to your hues to achieve tinted and shaded colors. You are required in some measure to use tinting and shading as a means of developing contrast. When doing so, it would be good to refer back to your grey scale studies to consider the sort of range you may achieve. When adding white or black to a hue, it is always crucial to first take into account the light/dark identity of the hue you are adding to. How light or dark is it to begin with? In what direction do I wish to push this hue, and how much tinting or shading will achieve this? if you are not relying on tinting or shading to achieve a light-dark contrast, then you must still be aware of the light-dark nature of the hue you are choosing: that blue is darker than yellow, that red is darker than orange, etc. Your final composition should be arrived at with consideration given to how the Amish quilters successfully distributed color through the use of light and dark contrast. Before painting your composition, remember to plan your the location of your color well in advance-- do not make up the distribution of your color as you go along.

Student thumbnails for this project. Please note how the student is considering the distribution of light and dark using graphite:

When creating your composition, in addition to expressing a light-dark contrast of color, you must also distribute this color using only geometric shape. This means we are not making a representational image, but an abstraction that is composed of geometric shapes. Your composition should contain color from top to bottom, side to side-- please do not leave any blank, white or unpainted areas. Plan your piece out using thumbnail strategies, copy your image in light pencil onto an 10 x 10 inch piece of illustration board, with 1/2 inch, clean margins. Also, refresh your understanding of the steps of successfully using your paint. Since you will be working in small, geometric units, it should be easier to fill in the area with color, without too much in the way of paint buildup, quick drying, or excessive streaking. When using tape or a straight edge to mask off an area, or create a straight line, do not paint into or against the tape or straight edge, as this will force paint under it and build up a high edge on your paint. Rather, paint along the side of the tape or straight edge, in a direction that is parallel to it. The consistency of your paint should be regulated, not too watery or thick, but as smooth and consistent as possible. Remember, do not mix the paint with your brush, use your palette knife.

On Tuesday, October the 4th, you will need to turn in your piece along with your thumbnail compositions for the class critique.

ADDITIONALLY, please find one natural object to bring into class as a subject to work from. The object should be organic and grown. A flower, a complex vegetable or fruit. Something with a dynamic form containing much surface variation. An orange, a pear or an apple would be examples of what NOT to bring in, as their surfaces are smooth and plain. A pineapple, however, has many surface changes. A large seashell would also, or a large piece of tree bark. Your object should also not be too small, as you want to be able to examine the surface structure at great length for your drawing. If you are in doubt as to what you have chosen, feel free to email me for advice. Be prepared to create a drawing/painting of this, in the 10/4 class session.

Here, along with the two large images at the start of this entry, are examples of how previous students of mine realized this project:

Images (third from top to bottom): 1. Pennsylvania Amish Sunshine and Shadow Quilt, c. 1930, pieced wool; 2. Amish (Penn.?) Sunshine and Shadow Quilt, c. 1900, wool; 3. Pennsylvania Amish Sunshine and Shadow Quilt, c. 1900 - 1925, wool; 4. Amish Sunshine and Shadow Quilt, c. 1970, wool.