Thursday, March 19, 2009

Four different students

As one component of their final project, I had my first year painting students copy a page from Faber Birren's Creative Color. Although it is not the same as painting from life, I thought the exercise incorporated many valuable challenges: Transparency, Texture, Highlights, Shadows, Luminosity, Iridescence, Trompe-l'œil, etc. I've never actually read the book and only began collecting these sorts of publications out of some sort of kitchy irony. Lately, however, I have been discovering little gems buried in them. From Creative Color's forward: "Human perception is a fascinating area of study for the simple reason that it is related to the firsthand experience of everyone. It is not something apart from life, but intimately tied in with it. Thus everyone has access to the laboratory of his own consciousness. The way may not be too easy, but at least it is personal and not remote." Alas, imagine my disappointment, when only four students finished.

4 comments:

Chris Rywalt said...

I bought that book for my dad because he called me asking how to make a tabletop he was trying to draw (in colored pencil) look like the pebbled glass it's made of. I honestly couldn't tell him, except to say that it's probably all done with trickery, but later I thought this book might be helpful.

He never really reported back. I think he stopped drawing again.

Ms. Brazil said...

I especially like the different representations of the knob and the vase.

Carla said...

The four renditions are fascinating. Could you have handled more?

Jacques de Beaufort said...

that's a little hard for intro painting

you should post some more cool kitschy images so i dun have to buy the book yo