Friday, May 13, 2011

Color Theory in Action

Jason Dowd, an instructor at the Laguna College of Art, asked his students to paint color wheels for his Composition and Color class.


They placed the high chroma colors on the outside edge, stepping down to gray at the center. They then explored the gamut masking method outlined in my book Color and Light to generate color schemes and to analyze classical paintings.

Isabelle Moore carefully considered the color gamut before executing this magnificent master copy of the "Harvester" by William Adolphe Bouguereau.

If other instructors are doing class projects based on ideas in Color and Light, please send me photos (jgurneyart at yahoo.com) and I’ll share them on the blog.

And if you want to assign Color and Light as your course guide, please let me know. At the Dinotopia Store, we can offer you discounts on group orders, and I can sign them for each of your students.

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Dinotopia Store
Laguna College of Art (LCAD)
Previously on GJ: a visit to LCAD  

8 comments:

  1. I noticed that the Wilson's Sky Blending Method is unavailable, so if you get a chance could you repost it, please? It seems to have been lost in the Blogger Flogger.

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  2. I noted JPW's Blogger departure as well, though, inexplicably, it hung around on gmail Reader for a half day longer. If you go here...
    http://archive.peabody.yale.edu/james-perry-wilson/chapter6-the-african-hall.html
    ...you can read the source from which that post was extracted.

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  3. Mr. Cachet, The Wilson post on GurneyJourney is back up. You can find it by going down a couple posts from this one.

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  4. ....magnificent master copy of the "Harvester" by William Adolphe Bouguereau.

    Are Bouguereau's flesh half-tones really that purple?

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  5. Tom, it's hard for me to make that judgment. Keep in mind that we're looking at a digital photo of a painted copy that I presume is made from a printed reproduction of the original. Last time I was in a gallery with some Bouguereaus, I had some reproductions that I could hold up net to the originals, and they were very different. Doing a copy from the original is ideal, but most of us don't have that chance too often.

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  6. Beautiful copy of "The Grape Picker" ("Harvester" is a different painting)

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  7. James, I don't suppose you'd be willing, or could point us to a guide to making one of those handy little color wheels. I understand that the colors are simply desaturated my measure until reaching the center... but for those of us who didn't have the benefit of an art instructor, it would be nifty to read a guide or watch someone create one.

    BTW, I have your book and love it. Every time I open it I learn something new. :)

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  8. Thanks, Moose, I've been wanting to do a little video with tips on the color wheel, so hopefully I'll get around to it this summer.

    Moish, thanks for the clarification.

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