Harold Speed on Practical Color, part 1.

Today we'll take a look at Chapter 8: "Colour: Practical" from Harold Speed's 1924 art instruction book Oil Painting Techniques and Materials.

I'll present Speed's main points in boldface type either verbatim or paraphrased, followed by comments of my own. If you want to add a comment, please use the numbered points to refer to the relevant section of the chapter.

The first half of this chapter is about painting methods, and I'll just present a list of some of the main bullet points.

1. Throwing eyes out of focus vs. squinting
Speed says that the former is better for judging color; the latter for judging value. To be honest, I can't throw my eyes out of focus on command. I can sort of go cross-eyed, but I can't really blur everything out. Anyone have any tips for me?

Portrait by Harold Speed

2. Impressionists pioneered the scientific / objective painting of color.
They invented a way to make almost anything paintable. However, Speed reminds us that there are pitfalls to be guarded against: superficiality, slovenly drawing, and neglecting the beauty of deep shadows.

3. "When sunlight is seen in very strong quantities its component prismatic colours can be observed."
He says this is obvious even to the untrained eye. But I'm not quite sure what Speed means. I suppose he means something like a chromatic aberration in a lens. I can't really say I've experienced the colors "unmixing" in my eye. I can see halation effects, especially when I squint, but not the separation into component hues. Speed says that breaking up bright light into prismatic colors is the only way to convey strongly glaring light, but I would suggest that there are other ways, especially those used by JMW Turner and Frederic Church.

Speed then goes on to catalog a variety of painting methods, which I'll just list (for the sake of discussion) rather than try to recapitulate.

4. (page 177) "Method of old tempera painters: Painting color thinly over another repeatedly, thereby getting a play of two colours." 
Flesh painted in terra vert (greenish gray) with pinks and ochres thinly painted over. Vermeer's Lady at Virginal painted this way, Speed suggests.

Harold Speed, Old Tom, courtesy BBC

5. Painting opaque color into transparent; first scumbling the transparent all over, and then painting into it, leaving it to show through where necessary.
Speed reminds us that combining transparent and opaque colors gives the most potential for richness and variety.

6. "All colors are made warmer when painted over light grounds transparently, and all colors are made cooler when mixed with white."
This is a quality of paint mixing that just takes practice. "For sheer beauty of color," he says, "nothing can touch transparent color."

7. Movement in color. 
Big topic of this chapter. Speed talks about various ways to make colors change from one passage to another.

8. Finishing hot. 
When completing a painting using certain methods, you can't keep retouching it. Speed uses the comparison of driving an old car up a steep hill. If you don't make it over the top of the hill, you have to back up and start all over.

8. Broken color.
Spots of adjacent color that mix in the eye.

9. Mixing several colors on one brush load.

10. Pre-Raphaelite method: painting into a tacky white ground.

(oil technique) Has anyone tried this?

Holman Hunt by Harold Speed courtesy BBC.

11. Titian method: red and black, allowed to dry, over which you apply a thin film of white.

12. Pure glazing.

He says it's out of favor, but that beautiful effects can happen that way.

13. Putting a thin border of bright colors around the edges of large masses.

Cecilia Beaux and Wayne Thiebaud (above) comes to mind.

Next week—We'll follow along with his demo, which starts on page 125.

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In its original edition, the book is called "The Science and Practice of Oil Painting." Unfortunately it's not available in a free edition, but there's an inexpensive print edition that Dover publishes under a different title "Oil Painting Techniques and Materials (with a Sargent cover)," and there's also a Kindle edition.
Get my book "Color and Light" signed from my website or from Amazon.

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Luz y Color

The Spanish edition of "Color and Light" is now available in print form. It's available from La Casa Del Libro. The response has been excellent, so a Spanish edition of "Imaginative Realism" is coming next.

(PS, I'm a little behind on today's Harold Speed book club post, and I hope to have that out tomorrow.)

Harvey Dunn and His Students at the Rockwell

Last week we visited the Norman Rockwell Museum to see the exhibition "Masters of the Golden Age: Harvey Dunn and His Students." 

  

Dunn was a vital link between Howard Pyle's teaching and a generation of story illustrators in the Golden Age of Illustration. The exhibit includes a room showcasing Dunn's students, including Dean Cornwell, Harold Von Schmidt, Mead Schaeffer, Saul Tepper, and Dan Content. They produced big canvases brimming with color, character, and drama.

For example, here's a painting of "The Count of Monte Cristo" by Mead Schaeffer (from the Kelly Collection of American Art). The head is lit from above by a greenish light, shadowing the brows, and the bright yellow / white slash of light behind is applied boldly with a painting knife.

Dunn's precepts were forthright and positive, leaving no room for weak or tentative handling. He emphasized the same kind of mental projection that Pyle advocated. For example:

Everything must be positive. Never in doubt.
Put yourself in the picture and the situation.
To eliminate takes a great deal of study.
A man cannot lie unless he knows the truth.

Two of the rooms show the work of Harvey Dunn himself, and the work is beautifully presented by the museum staff. His students made a life cast of his face and hand, and those are displayed in a vitrine in the show.

You can watch archival footage of Dunn painting on YouTube at this link.

Unfortunately, even though I came to the show wanting to love his paintings, I found them less inspiring than the work of his students. Although many of Dunn's initial ideas had epic potential, the execution often suffers from awkward drawing and heavy-handed paint application. 

We found a letter in the museum archives where Tom Lovell summed up the problem: "Harvey Dunn could draw when it suited his purpose—all the "old ones" were well drawn. Later he became more crude in drawing and value."

This crudeness, I believe, comes from skipping over preparatory steps and proceeding directly from idea to the finished canvas. Many of the Golden Age illustrators produced such a volume of work on such short schedules that they often dispensed with preliminary steps. Illustrators who neglect those stages are more hit-or-miss, producing work that is often sub-par.

I think the consistently high quality of the work of Norman Rockwell, J.C. Leyendecker, and Tom Lovell results from the thoroughness and professionalism of their intermediate stages: sketch, color sketch, figure study, charcoal comp, etc.



We finished the day visiting the Museum archives and the classrooms with Patrick O'Donnell, a game designer and teacher. He's doing a program called "Art in Motion" where he demonstrates drawing for families who visit the museum. He'll be doing it again on February 13.
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"Masters of the Golden Age: Harvey Dunn and His Students" will be at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts through March 6, 2016
More on Mead Schaeffer on Illustration Art
PDF of Dunn's teaching "An Evening in the Clasroom"

NYPL Image Archives

The New York Public Library has released its public domain archives online in an experimental graphic format that makes searching for images fun. The interface lets you survey thousands of images at a time in a photo mosaic of tiny thumbnails (above). 

On their site, when you scroll over the little tiles, they pop up into a larger image. Double clicking opens up access to the image in various scales of resolution, most of which you can access for free. They're even set up to take orders for printed wall posters.

I found this 19th century photograph of a clown taken by the photography studio Jeremiah Gurney & Son.

You can select a category by century, genre, collection, or color, and then drill down to specific images that might interest you. There are stereoscopic views, old postcards, manuscripts, atlases, menus, portraits, prints, and drawings. 

The public domain remix was developed by Brian Foo of NYPL Labs, using the data released by NYPL.

Spectrum Deadline Coming January 25

If you create imaginative realism, such as fantasy, science fiction, comics, concept art, or gallery art, I recommend entering your work in the annual showcase of Spectrum Fantastic Art.

The judges for the next Spectrum will include some of the top imaginative creators in the field, including: David Palumbo, Cynthia Sheppard, Kirk Thatcher, Charlie Wen, and Terryl Whitlatch.

The entry fees are very reasonable, and the deadline is January 25, less than two weeks away. Here's the entry information. And here's more about Spectrum.

More Concert Sketching Questions

Aria from Met Opera’s Le comte Ory, Supracolor II pencil

The new issue of International Artist (#107) answers lots of your questions about sketching in live concerts. Here are a couple more:

Corin: How long does it take to draw a portrait in a concert? 
Corin, I take as long as the opportunity gives me. The program usually gives me a pretty good idea of how much time I have for a given sketch opportunity. For example, opera arias last only a few minutes, so in the little sketch Aria from the Metropolitan Opera’s Le comte Ory, I limited my ambitions just to getting the basic silhouette of the singers in their costume.

For some concerts I might have the luxury of 90 minutes or more to work with. If I’m not sure how much time I have, I might start with one performer and build out.


Pierre Fontaine: Have you ever had any mishaps while sketching at a concert?
Pierre, yes, one time at the opera, I was all dressed up in my suit and I was sketching with the ink brush. And then I dropped the cap.

That left the inky tip exposed right near my white shirt. Where was the cap? It must have hit the floor! As the grand arias continued, I reached around with my foot until I put a toe on it under the seat of the lady in front of me. When the intermission came around, I got down on my hands and knees between the rows of seats until I got that cap back.
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 International Artist (#107)

2016 Voices of the Wilderness

Voices of the Wilderness Source

Have you ever dreamed of going on a painting expedition to Alaska?

There's a government-sponsored residency called Voices of the Wilderness which has just announced that it is now accepting applications for the next season. Previous GurneyJourneyers have taken up the opportunity with exciting, life-changing experiences.

Artists pair up with a wilderness professional. In addition to creating art, they work together on stewardship projects, while camping in the wilderness. In exchange for the residency, artists donate a work of art.

Residencies are open to professional artists in many different media, including 2D visual art and sculpture, photographers, audio composers, and filmmakers.

This year, there are eleven opportunities being offered during the June - September season. Many of the costs are sponsored by The US Forest Service, The National Park Service, and The US Fish and Wildlife Service. Applications due March 1.

Check out the Voices of the Wilderness website for more information, or contact coordinator Barbara Lydon at (907) 754-2318, e-mail: blydon@fs.fed.us

Kiosk Media

Berenice Abbott, Newsstand, 32nd St., 1935. Courtesy MOMA

Iranian blogger Hossein Derakhshan was jailed for his political blog posts about seven years ago (that's about when I started blogging), and was kept away from the Internet during that time. He's free now, and he wrote an article in Medium describing his reaction to how the Internet has changed since his imprisonment.

Fewer people, he observes, are spending time exploring open websites and blogs. Instead we are spending our online time inside the walled gardens of Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, where links are often discouraged. Derakhshan argues that "linkiness" is an essential value of the internet that we're losing. Instead of actively searching via the browser and surfing from link to link, the internet experience has become more passive, with apps presenting content that computer algorithms choose for you based on your previous interests.

Because Facebook, Instagram and Twitter all favor short content and quick reactions, he says they don't really foster reasoned discussion and the opportunity for debate free from government and corporate oversight.

Poster kiosk via ClickFix

Since I'm not a political blogger, I'm not personally as worried about that last point, but I think it's a valid concern. I also think he has a point about the kind of discussion that happens on blogs vs. other channels of communication. But I'm not as discouraged as he is.

In 2015 I expanded to Twitter and Instagram, and I keep up daily posts on Facebook. People call those "social media," but somehow "social" doesn't seem like the best metaphor to me. I prefer to think of them as "kiosk media." You pin your little poster on the kiosk in the public square, and maybe people see it or maybe they don't, but it soon gets covered over by another poster.

Unlike Mr. Derakhshan I enjoy the witty, quick comments that appear there as much as I enjoy the more considered opinions. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are valuable for sharing images, reaching new people, and gauging reaction to artwork.

What I like least about the kiosk media is that yesterday's post is gone tomorrow. Because everything is behind a password wall, it's not open to search. It may make a momentary sensation, but not a lasting one. By contrast, the information and images archived on Blogger, YouTube, and Pinterest are available for discovery weeks, months, or years later by people who are not subscribed to your feed.

Rembrand't Night Watch with museum visitors
photographer unknown, thanks, Roger

That's why I'm certainly not about to give up on blogging, as many people have. The GurneyJourney blog and my YouTube channel are still the centerpiece of my efforts on the web. The traffic on this blog has held steady over the years, and although it hasn't grown as fast as the kiosk media, it's still robust. Anyway, the quantity of traffic doesn't matter as much as the quality of the exchange of ideas. Thanks to your input in the comments, I've grown and learned as much as you have. I have always found your comments and links thoughtful, funny, and interesting.

If you spend time at Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, please check out my channels there. I've got lots of ideas for 2016 for new things that work best in those environments.
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"The Web We Have to Save: The rich, diverse, free web that I loved — and spent years in an Iranian jail for — is dying." by Hossein Derakhshan

Neon Window Light

The red neon sign in the left window says "OPEN." 

If I were to paint the tubes of the neon sign with bright red paint, it would be too dark in value. So I keep the sign very light in value and paint the effect of the red light on the regions around it. Note how the red light floods the window frame and the back of the guy's head. 

When a light source is both high in value and strong in chroma, one strategy to capture it is to focus on the effect of the light, not on the light itself.

I'm using an ultra-limited palette of gouache: brilliant purple, flame red, raw umber, and white in a Pentalic watercolor sketchbook. 

Yes, I've been known to accidentally dip my brush in the coffee. 

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Earlier discussion on the blog in the post "Practical Lights"

J.C. Leyendecker's Report from the Académie Julian

The 50th issue of Illustration Magazine is completely dedicated to Leyendecker, with a staggering collection of 162 illustrations of the life and work of both Leyendecker brothers, J.C. and Frank.

About 100 of those are of J.C.'s art, taken from high-rez scans of the original art and reproduced full page, making this one of the best collections of his work in print.

The biography by David Saunders is well-researched and well-balanced. One of the things that fascinated me most were the insights into the Leyendeckers' French training, and I'll focus on that aspect in this post.

J.C. wrote home to Chicago describing the work he was doing in the Académie Julian under Benjamin-Constant, Lefebvre, Bouguereau, and Laurens:

"Thoroughness is the principle upon which the French Art Schools have won their success. It doesn't take long to discover that style and dash will not make a drawing or painting go here as it will an illustration back home." 

"Serious work —getting right down to the foundation principles—is the demand which is laid upon every student over here. If I learned anything it was that a picture is really only valuable for the thought behind it. There is little talk of 'handling' and of the catch tricks of the trade, and much emphasis upon a deep and serious significance in everything attempted."

Students are accepted into the program without an entrance portfolio, but instead they are evaluated after attempting a study from life:

"Three models pose at the same time in each room, and the new pupil takes his materials and begins work upon the subject which attracts him. But some time in the first week the professor comes around and takes a first look at the beginner's study. That is an important moment, for if the teacher does not approve of it the nouveau is assigned to work from casts instead of from life."

"The mornings are devoted to class study from models and casts, and the afternoons to composition work. The subject of the composition is announced in the class, and it is briefly explained by the teacher. The students are not allowed to consult with any authorities bearing upon the subject, but must make their composition wholly from the meager data given them by the professor." 

"The pupil is at liberty to do his composition in his own atelier or combination lodging-room and studio. Saturday afternoon is looked forward to as the great occasion of the week. Then the compositions are brought to the classroom and the teacher passes from one easel to another giving his criticism to the pupils, who crowd around him, clambering upon chairs and stools to secure points of vantage from which to view the pictures."
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In the future, I'll share a couple other excerpts from this special issue. If you like this kind of stuff, pick up a copy before it sells out.

Illustration Magazine issue 50, which contains 112 pages and costs $15.00.